By Aaron Bunch
The sight of Indigenous teenager Cassis Turvey being bashed with a pole, bleeding and crying in pain is something a witness has said he lives with every day.
Cassius, a 15-year-old Noongar Yamatji boy, died in hospital 10 days after prosecutors say he was chased, knocked to the ground and “deliberately struck to the head” in Perth’s eastern suburbs on October 13, 2022.
CCTV footage of Cassius Turvey on a bus on the day of his assault in October 2022.Credit: Supreme Court of WA
Aleesha Louise Gilmore, 23, her boyfriend Jack Steven James Brearley, 23, and his mates Brodie Lee Palmer, 29, and Mitchell Colin Forth, 26, are on trial in the WA Supreme Court charged with murdering Cassius.
A young man, who cannot be named for legal reasons, told the jury on Friday he was among a group of teens who had gathered to watch a fight after school.
The then-13-year-old said a ute pulled up and two white men “jumped out and that’s when all the boys started running ... I just ran ... I was just scared”.
He said he heard a woman yelling racial slurs and one of the men, who he described as tall and skinny with a mullet, swung a pole at one of his friends.
“I ran to the (nearby) TAFE college ... I went back through the bushes ... to get to the other side,” he told prosecutor Ben Stanwix.
The witness said Cassius was among the teens running from the men and that once he had crossed a creek in the bush before arriving at the TAFE he looked back and spotted his “close mate” get hit.
Asked who did it, the teen said: “The fella with the mullet.”
“I saw him hit him once,” he said.
“He dropped to the ground ... he was holding his head.”
The teen told the court Cassius was bleeding from the side of his head.
“He said he was like getting a headache,” he said.
“He was crying in pain.
“That’s what I saw with my own eyes ... I live with that every day.”
Stanwix has previously told the court Gilmore had left Brearley, Forth and Palmer before they confronted a large group of teenage students, who had gathered at a green open space after school.
He alleged Brearley chased Cassius down and struck him on the head at least twice. One blow split Cassius’ left ear in half and another lacerated his forehead.
Stanwix told the court Brearley “was filled with fury about his broken car windows”, which happened a day earlier, and about threats communicated via social media that a group of kids could damage the home he shared with Gilmore.
The court previously heard Brearley allegedly later bragged about his “vigilante violence”, saying: “He was just lying in the field, and I was striking him with the trolley pole so hard so he learned his lesson.”
Prosecutors allege Forth, Palmer and Gilmore helped Brearley and knew his intent.
The trial continues.
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AAP
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