Police feared elder Clavell brother would die amid painful negotiation at Barnawartha North campground
While Joshua Clavell lay critically injured with gunshot wounds, his tomahawk-wielding brother kept police at bay, with officers fearing the terror suspect would die before he could be treated. This is how the drama unfolded on the Victoria-NSW border.
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Terror suspect Joshua Clavell lay wounded for up to 10 minutes while the police who had shot him tried to negotiate his brother Joel’s surrender.
The Herald Sun understands officers at the scene feared Joshua, 30, could die but were unable to get ambulance officers help to him until Joel, 19, was detained.
They tried for minutes to persuade Joel — who was brandishing a tomahawk — to give himself up during the drama at Barnawartha North, near the Victoria-New South Wales border.
A Taser was fired at Joel but did not bring him down, before capsicum spray was tried without effect.
Joel then lunged at police with the tomahawk and was shot.
Joshua had been wounded about 10 minutes earlier after moving at police with a knife.
The Clavells had used their car to ram a police vehicle in the period before the standoff, at the isolated Richardsons Bend campground.
They remain under police guard in separate hospitals, where they are recovering from bullet wounds.
It was revealed on Thursday that the pair are the sons of South Australian criminal Rodney Clavell, who took his own life during a siege in the Adelaide CBD in 2014. Police Association secretary Wayne Gatt will visit the area next week to talk to the members involved.
“It doesn’t matter if they’re in the CBD or Barnawartha North, the threat to their (police officers’) safety and wellbeing is constant and it’s confronting,” Mr Gatt said.
A small patch of dead grass and a blackened campfire is all that remains of the site by the Murray River where the Clavell brothers had stayed.
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Hidden between trees, away from the river’s edge, the pair had gone almost unnoticed for up to five weeks.
Farmer Kevin Richardson, who owns the land, was one of the few to have noticed their campfire and a teepee-style shelter.
“I said to them, you can stay here for up to six weeks at a time and they asked me if there was anywhere else to camp for free,” Mr Richardson said at the site on Friday.
He said they had a small gas bottle for cooking and would drive a small yellow car to and from the camp to a nearby service station.
Detectives were back at the reserve on Friday searching for any further clues to Wednesday night’s events.