‘Petty grievance’ and ‘vigilante violence’ led to Cassius Turvey’s tragic death, murder trial told

Aboriginal schoolboy Cassius Turvey was chased down and fatally beaten over “petty grievances” that had nothing to do with him, a Perth jury has been told.

Mechelle Turvey, mother of Cassius Turvey, at court on Monday. Picture: Colin Murty

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Aboriginal schoolboy Cassius Turvey was chased down and fatally beaten over “petty grievances” that had nothing to do with him, a Perth jury has been told.

The long-anticipated jury trial of three men and one woman accused of murdering Cassius began in the West Australian Supreme Court on Monday with photographs of Cassius – seriously injured but alive – after he had been “struck to the head at least twice” with a metal pole on October 13, 2022. Cassius died 10 days later because of the bleeding in his brain, prosecutor Ben Stanwix SC told the jury

Mr Stanwix told the jury that it was Jack Brearley, then 21, who wielded the pole and later bragged about it, allegedly saying “he was lying in the field and I was just smacking him with the trolley pipe so hard he learned his ­lesson”.

The others charged with Cassius’ murder because of their alleged roles on the day of the attack in 2022 are Mitchell Forth, then 24, Aleesha Gilmore, then 20, and Brodie Palmer, then 27.

Mr Palmer is represented by former Liberal attorney-general Christian Porter.

Mr Stanwix told the jury that in the days before the attack on Cassius, Mr Brearley and the other adults in the dock had been involving themselves in children’s disputes, escalating those disputes and variously threatening and bashing schoolchildren whether they were part of those disputes or not.

“The story of how Cassius came to be murdered is remarkable for the way that his death was the endpoint of a complex series of events that had absolutely nothing to do with him,” Mr Stanwix said.

Cassius died in 2022.

Former attorney-general Christian Porter, below, is acting for a defendant. Picture: Colin Murty

“He was set upon by people he did not know over petty grievances that did not involve him.”

A fifth adult, Ethan Mackenzie, is also on trial for his alleged role in a group attack on a different 15-year-old boy four days ­before Cassius was assaulted.

On that occasion, Mr Mackenzie, Mr Brearley and Mr Forth are accused of dragging, kicking and stabbing that boy because they thought he was friends with boys who had made threats online. However, it was a case of mistaken identity. In CCTV footage of that alleged attack shown to the jury on Monday, a 68-year-old man tries to intervene, saying to the men as they attacked the boy: “Get out of here, please”. Mr Forth is accused of saying to him: “Get out of it dog, walk away”.

The jury was told that conversations between the accused on the day of the attack on Cassius had been retrieved from a blank memory card at the home shared by Mr Brearley and his then girlfriend Ms Gilmore.

That memory card had been used in a surveillance system at the house. The process of restoring the data on that card was not perfect, Mr Stanwix said, but it included clear portions of conversations played to the jury.

Mr Stanwix said this is how prosecutors knew certain details including what time the various accused left the house, the fact they were drinking before they left and what they said to each other after the attack on Cassius.

It revealed a heated argument between Mr Brearley and Ms Gilmore after the attack on Cassius and his friends including a boy on crutches, Mr Stanwix said.

Mr Stanwix said Mr Brearley was angry on the day of the attack on Cassius because someone had smashed his car windows, an apparent retaliation for the attack on the different boy days earlier, and he went “hunting” for kids.

“It was a vengeful act of vigilante violence,” Mr Stanwix said.

The trial is set down for 40 days.