Cassius Turvey murder trial verdict: Jack Brearley, Brodie Palmer found guilty of murdering Perth boy

Two of the men who chased down Cassius Turvey before one of them brutally bashed the teenager with a metal pole after accusing him and his friends of smashing car windows have been found guilty of murder. It took a jury more than three days to convict Jack Brearley and Brodie Palmer of the shocking crime which sent shockwaves across the country with rallies and protests taking place not only in response to the horrific assault but also in support of his grieving family. Two other people – Mitchell Forth and Aleesha Gilmore – were also charged with the 15-year-old’s murder but the jury acquitted Forth of the serious charge, instead finding him guilty of the lesser charge of manslaughter. Gilmore was also found not guilty of Cassius’ murder as well as his manslaughter, however she was found guilty of other offences including the assault on a boy on crutches the day the Indigenous teen was attacked and in relation to the kidnapping and assault of two other teens four days beforehand. Cassius died from bleeding on the brain 10 days after the attack at an oval in Middle Swan on October 13, 2022. The 15-year-old had been there with more than a dozen teenagers to watch a fight that had been organised on social media between Gilmore’s younger brother Cody and another teen. Prosecutor Ben Stanwix had argued in his closing address that all four were guilty of murder because they were party to a common purpose – to “hunt” down and attack with weapons school-aged children. The night before the attack on Cassius, Brearley’s car windows had been smashed in retaliation for an assault on two other teens that took place four days before that he, Gilmore, Forth and another man, Ethan MacKenzie, were also on trial for. “This was not a one man show,” Mr Stanwix said. “This was collective stupidity. It was a group of aggressive boofheads egging one another on, and it culminated, predictably, in high‑level, intentional violence to a child.” Brearley was the one, Mr Stanwix said, delivered the blow that led to the teenager’s death and argued Palmer and Forth were also guilty of murder because they aided him and acted as backup. Gilmore - who was not at the oval at the time of the attack - was just as responsible, he argued, because she was part of the “plan” and knew what Brearley was capable of. He said she saw Brearley’s behaviour on October 9 when he punched then dragged a teenager he believed wanted to bash Cody into his car, and that she was the one “working the phones” relaying information to trio about threats made against her brothers and a plan to run through her home. Brearley denied he struck Cassius with a pole claiming he only punched the teen in retaliation to being stabbed in the legs. While some teenagers testified they brought a knife to the oval that day, including one who said he gave it to a teenager after a man named Jack grabbed a pole from the back of the ute and took a swing at his friend, none said they saw Cassius with a knife. Brearley also claimed it was Palmer who delivered the blow, but Palmer refuted the allegation. He testified he was sitting in his car on the field when he heard Brearley yell out for help, so he ran into bushes where he claimed he found his mate standing over Cassius - who was lying in the bushes covered in blood - yelling at him to give him the name of a kid who had a knife. The trial was told Cassius’ DNA was also found on a blood stain on Brearley’s shorts, but his lawyer Simon Watters argued in his closings, that could be explained by the teen grabbing the shorts during their scuffle. Other evidence pointing to Brearley being the one who struck the teenager, prosecutors argued, was a phone call between a man they say was him and Gilmore’s mother in which he brags about “smacking him with a trolley pole so hard. He’s learnt his lesson.” CCTV from the Gilmore house in the hours before the assault was also played to the court which recorded Brearley saying “someone smashed my car windows, they’re about to die” before they left to go “hunting kids”. Palmer’s lawyer, Christian Porter, argued in his closing that his client could not be found guilty of murder because there was insufficient evidence he knew about Brearley’s murderous intention that day. He said while his client may have aided Brearley by driving him further into the field near the bushes, and that the three of them were “operating in common...to some extent in the field that day”, it could also be argued from his client’s position that his intention “was different to that of Jack Brearley’s, different enough that murder was not a probable consequence” and that manslaughter was more probable. Simon Frietag, acting on behalf of Gilmore, told the jury his client was not guilty of murder because she did not have the same common purpose as the others. And he said she not was present when Cassius was attacked because she was kicked out of the car along Patterson Drive before the men confronted the teens on the verge. Forth’s lawyer, Anthony Elliott, argued his client was not guilty of murder or manslaughter because he was not part of the common purpose to attack children nor did he engage in any of the violence against the children. He argued when Forth was at the Gilmore house collecting trolley poles, he was doing so to defend the house . And he said Forth was not “in the thick of things” nor did he intend to be and was not near the bushes when Cassius was attacked and therefore could not be described as aiding or encouraging Brearley. The 12 men and women of the jury also found Brearley, Forth, Palmer and Gilmore guilty of the assault on the boy on crutches moments before the attack on Cassius. And they convicted Brearley, Forth, MacKenzie and Gilmore of the kidnapping of two teens on October 9. They also found Brearley, Forth and MacKenzie guilty of assaulting one of the youths. All five will be sentenced at a later date.