Alleged teen torture: Everything we know about Tewantin incident
They are allegations that have left Queensland in shock: Three teens charged over an alleged assault on a 13-year-old girl. This is what we know.
Police & Courts
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Three teenage girls have been charged with assaulting a 13-year-old following an incident captured on video that left the Sunshine Coast – and Queensland – in shock.
This is everything we know so far about the police allegations.
WHEN AND WHERE DID THE ALLEGED TORTURE START?
Three girls, aged 12 to 14, were on March 13, 2023 charged with a number of serious offences over the alleged assault of a 13-year-old over a period of hours after she was lured to a Sunshine Coast home.
Police allege that on Saturday, March 11 the 13-year-old girl was invited into a Tewantin home where she was subsequently prevented from leaving and filmed while being assaulted, taunted and cut with a knife over the period of several hours.
The 14-year-old was charged with four counts of assault occasioning bodily harm, assault occasioning bodily harm while armed in company, deprivation of liberty, enter dwelling and commit indictable offence, armed robbery while in company used personal violence, enter premises and commit indictable offence and wilful damage.
She was remanded in custody and was due to face court again in April 2023
The 13-year-old was charged with assault occasioning bodily harm, assault occasioning bodily harm while armed in company, deprivation of liberty, armed robbery while in company used personal violence, enter dwelling and commit indictable offence, common assault and unauthorised dealing with shop goods.
She was due to reappear in Maroochydore Children's Court later in March.
The 12-year-old was charged with assault occasioning bodily harm, assault occasioning bodily harm while armed in company, deprivation of liberty, armed robbery in company with personal violence, enter dwelling and commit indictable offence and unauthorised dealing with shop goods.
She was due to reappear in Maroochydore Children's Court later in March.
WHAT HAPPENED TO THE ALLEGED TORTURE VICTIM?
It will be alleged the girl was befriended by the teens charged, just two weeks before she was invited to a “party” at the home.
“Physically (my daughter) should be dead,” her distraught mother said.
“Her face was unrecognisable (after the attack), it was very scary.”
The mother said her daughter spent a week in hospital and that the family were then “hiding out” in an Airbnb.
“She got stabbed in the knee … it just missed her tendon but she also has a fractured wrist,” she said.
“Her face was swollen to a degree that you couldn’t recognise her … it looked like her head was going to explode.”
The victim’s sister told The Today Show in March that the alleged attack “broke all of our hearts”.
“(My sister) is doing really well, everybody is supporting her … we’ve been getting heaps of messages from people we don’t even know,” the sister said.
WHAT HAPPENED TO THE ALLEGED TORTURE HOUSE?
On March 29 the Tewantin home where the teenage girl was allegedly tortured burnt to the ground in a suspicious blaze in the early hours the morning.
It comes after the home, which is owned by the Queensland Housing Commission, was boarded up after the inside was ransacked and vandalised just days earlier.
More than 50,000 people are waiting for social housing in Queensland.
At 10.30am, detectives arrived on scene.
Neighbours, who did not wish to be named, woke to the sounds of boards popping off the boarded up home early in the morning.
“We just heard the bang and then the roof caved in and then boom,” a neighbour said.
Sunshine Coast CIB Detective Senior Sergeant Craig Mansfield said the cause of the blaze was yet to be determined, but police were combing the scene and social media for any evidence.
WHAT WAS POSTED ON SOCIAL MEDIA ABOUT THE ALLEGED TORTURE?
Social media videos posted in the aftermath of the sickening alleged attack on the Sunshine Coast will form part of police investigations.
Police will allege that the 13-year-old girl was invited into a Tewantin home where she was subsequently prevented from leaving and filmed while being assaulted.
The 13-year-old pleaded that she would “do anything” before her head is repeatedly stomped on, in a video viewed by The Courier-Mail.
The teenage girls charged with the alleged offences took to social media on March 29 and wrote “Going viral thanks guys love ya” and “Thanks for the fame”.
Investigations are continuing.
WHAT DO WE KNOW ABOUT THE TEENS CHARGED?
Video emerged of one of the teenage girls charged over the prolonged assault and torture involved in an alleged incident on a bus just days earlier, police confirmed.
The footage allegedly shows the 14-year-old punching another teenager in the head during a bus trip at Noosaville about 3pm March 5.
Six days later on Saturday, March 11, the girl and two others, aged 12 and 14, allegedly held a 13-year-old against her will for over five hours at a Tewantin house.
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