WARNING: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers are warned the following article contains names and images of a deceased person.
An Indigenous teenager was seen with a bloody head after being chased into the bushland by two men with metal poles, as described in a murder trial.
Cassius Turvey, a 15-year-old Noongar Yamatji boy, lost his life in the hospital ten days after allegedly being chased, knocked to the ground, and intentionally hit on the head in Perth’s eastern suburbs on October 13, 2022.
The witness described one of the men as muscular and said the other two were skinny.
“The boys started running and the men were chasing after them,” she said.
She also said Cassius was among the teens fleeing from the men and that they fled into bushland near the TAFE.
The witness said the muscular man and one of the skinny men ran into the bush after the boys with metal poles.
She said Cassius later emerged from the bush and he was “holding his head and it was bleeding down like his head and his ear, and he was crying”.
According to prosecutor Ben Stanwix, Gilmore exited the vehicle before it circled back to where the teenagers were. Brearley, armed with a metal pole, reportedly attacked two teenagers in the group. Afterward, he got back into the vehicle with Palmer and Forth, then proceeded to chase after some of the other teenagers who had fled across the open grassy area.
Cassius was among them and Brearley “hunting for kids” struck him on the head at least twice. One blow split his left ear in half and another lacerated his forehead.
Stanwix said 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.
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 say Forth, Palmer and Gilmore helped Brearley and knew his intent.
The smashed car windows were part of a series of escalating tit-for-tat incidents that started on October 9 when some of the accused allegedly “snatched two kids off the street” and unlawfully detained them, punching, kicking and stabbing one of them.
The incident was triggered by a “love triangle” involving Gilmore’s 14-year-old brother and another teen of similar age, and social media exchanges about the boys fighting.
