From the Australian. Here's what's on the front. I'm Claire Harvey. It's Monday, February seventeen. Three foreign born people with criminal convictions will be deported to Nauru under a deal struck by Immigration Minister Tony Burke. They're part of a group the government has been unable to deport or detain after a High Court ruling, despite some having committed violent offenses, including murder. Now the government's looking for more deals to
resettle the remaining two hundred and eighty plus people. Anthony Alberanezi's approval rating has hit a record low, and a majority of voters don't think Labor should be re elected. Those newsport figures are exclusively at the Australian dot com dou right now. It's a shocking case. A fifteen year old na Yamachi boy in his school uniform savagely beaten in Perth's suburbs. Cassius Turvy's death was murder according to prosecutors, but they say it was not a racially motivated attack.
Four adults have pleaded not guilty to murdering Cassius in twenty twenty two. Today, the huge and complex trial underway in Western Australia. On October thirteen, twenty twenty two, Cassius Turvy, a fifteen year old schoolboy from Perth's Nunga Yamachi community, stepped off a bus with a group of friends and began the walk home. Within hours, Cassius would be in hospital with lacerations and two brain bleeds. Ten days later
he was dead. Vigils were held around Australia and overseas for cassius.
One tragic death uniting the community. There were fifteen five pits at the ceremony, one to mark each year of Cassius Turvey's life. Cassius's mother has called for unity, not division.
Do not use my son's tragedy as a platform to blow your trumpets.
Now, a ten week trial is underway with four adults accused of Cassius's murder. All the accused are non Indigenous, but prosecutor Ben Stanwick's sc told the jury their alleged attack on an Aboriginal child was not about race.
The prosecutor's been very clear to the jury that this was not a racially motivated crime.
Page Tailor's, the Australian's Indigenous Affairs correspondent and she's covering the trial.
He has told them you are going to hear some racially tainted language, and as an example, he said black this, black that. But the jury has been told it will be wrong for them to believe that Cassius was targeted because he was Aboriginal.
Stanwicks told the jury there had been claims the incident was racially motivated, but anyone who said that had not heard or seen one shred of evidence. That message was echoed by the defense for at least one of the accused, who said any suggestion this was a race crime was misinformed, ill advised and misguided. Murder is a Supreme Court matter in Western Australia, and this is being heard by the
States Chief Justice Peter Quinlan. But this trial is being heard in one of the state's modern court rooms, in the District Court.
It's a very large room. I can see ten lawyers there every day and they are up the front near the Chief Justice Peter Quinlan. The five accused in the dock facing the jury, who are on the other side of the room. The public galleri has been pretty full at times, and in fact the public gallery has been so full at times that the media goes to a media room where they can see what's going on from a screen.
They accused are Jack Briley and Alisia Gilmore, both twenty three, along with twenty six year old Mitchell Fourth and twenty nine year old Brodie Palmer. Each has their own lawyers, and Brodie Palmer is represented by former Commonwealth Attorney General Christian Porter. They've all pleaded not guilty, but this case is full of twists and turns, including two of the men in the dock pointing the finger at one another.
All the jury has been told the story of how Cassiers came to be murdered is remarkable for the way that his death was the endpoint of a series of events that had absolutely nothing to do with him.
In fact, according to the Crown, it's a tangled story of teenage love and mistaken identity.
The prosecutor Ben Stanwick sc has told the jury that the genesis of this in fact a dispute between Alisha Gilmore's much younger brother. He was a fourteen year old boy at the time and he was dating a girl who had previously dated another boy around the same age, and the prosecutors telling the jury keep in mind when we say dating. These are fourteen year olds who had
been seeing each other for a matter of days. So there was some tension apparently between this fourteen year old boy and the other boy who had previously dated his girlfriend, and this tension is alleged to have triggered a series of disputes. The boy's older sister is Alisha Gilmore, the girlfriend of Jack Brieley, and somehow they became involved in this dispute which appears to have got bigger and escalated.
At one point, Jack Brealley's windows were smashed, and on the day that Cassius was attacked, the prosecution says Jack Breally was looking looking for revenge for his broken windows.
The jury heard really had said this. We've used a voice actor to bring you the words read aloud to the jury, allegedly spoken by Jack Brealley.
Somebody smashed my car windows.
They're about to die.
What the Crown is attempting to show the jury is an escalating series of violent events. Four days before Cassius was beaten, the Crown says Jack Mitchell fourth and another man, Ethan Mackenzie, were involved in an assault on another fifteen year old boy.
They say that three men that's Jack Brealley, Mitchell fourth and Ethan mackenzie were driving around looking to find some kids who had been making threats online. It was all part of what the prosecution said were petty grievances. And the prosecution says that on that day, four days before Cassius was attacked, they did find a boy, Cassius, age fifteen. They weren't looking for Cassius, they were looking for kids that had been involved in this dispute, and the prosecution
claims that they deprived this boy of his liberty. Driving around in the car, the jury saw some CCTV footage which appeared to show three large figures dragging and kicking and attacking this boy, and the prosecution says, that's Jack Breeley, that's Mitchell fourth, and that's Ethan McKenzie delivering some rough justice onto this child.
And that's when someone tried to intervene a local man who saw this alleged attack unfolding.
The CCTV that was played to the jury shows in the middle of this scene, a sixty eight year old man comes out of his own home. He sees what's going on, and his name's Reginald Burgess. The jury has been told and Reginald Burgess says to this group of men who are attacking a child, get out of here, police, and you can hear a male voice saying back to mister Burgess, get out of it, dog walk away.
The Crown says, at some point during this alleged attack, the group realized they'd got the wrong kid, that whomever they were looking for it wasn't him.
This kid had nothing to do with the group they were looking for, and they allegedly took him home, cleaned him up a bit, and gave him a Nintendo switch and a pair of shoes and tried to smooth things over.
Ethan Mackenzie, Jack Breally, and Mitchell Fourth are accused of assaulting this boy, and Brealley's girlfriend, Alicia Gilmore is accused of detaining the boy. They've all pleaded not guilty to all charges coming up. After the break, the accused men turn on one another. Any trial with five accused is
going to be complicated and detailed. The jury will have to absorb a lot of evidence before they retire to deliberate on their verdict, and part of that complexity is that four people are charged with Cassius's murder, even though only one is alleged to have struck him with a metal pole.
Well, the prosecution says only Jack really struck the blows, but the other three are guilty of murder because of their roles on the day. They say that his friend Mitchell fourth is guilty of murder, and they say that Brodie is too, because they were there on the day and met the criteria for murder, which does not require the person to have actually struck any blows. They need
to have shared a common purpose. For example, Jack b Really was the twenty one year old who had done a shift earlier that day at his job as a paver, But according to the prosecution, him and his friends and his girlfriend at the time line had been involving themselves in the disputes of local children, and according to the prosecution, Jack was extremely angry that his car windows had been broken.
This was allegedly part of these ongoing disputes involving local kids, and he set out, according to the prosecution, to hurt someone that day, and that's when he is alleged to have come across this group of children.
Glimpses of Bally have popped up in witness testimony in the trials first few days, with young people telling the court they saw brilliant a car pulling up and asking where a particular group of young boys was in the days before the attack on Cassius. One young witness told the court really said to us if we were lying, he was going to smash our heads. In what do you think will be the defense of Jack Breally?
So far we've heard from Simon Waters, the very senior defense lawyer for mister Breeley, and he has said that it was not Jack really at all that hit Cassius that day. It was Brody Palmer, who was twenty seven at the time, and that man was his friend back then, and they're sitting in the dock together pointing the finger at one another.
What has said his client, Jack Brealley, chased Cassius into bushland and that Cassius was armed with a knife. What has said Cassius slashed Breeley's leg about three times? What has said really punched Cassius but then watched as Brody Palmer hit Cassius with a metal pole. Breally's case is that, in fact, he yelled at Brody Palmer to stop. Brially says Palmer then threatened him, saying Brilly and his girlfriend would be dead and in body bags if they told
anyone what had happened. Brody Palmer's represented by Christian Porter, the former Attorney General. He's now practicing as a barrister. What's Christian Porter saying in Brodie Palmer's defense?
Will Mister Porter has addressed the jury and he's told them this is a tragedy. This is the story of a beautiful fifteen year old boy who had his life cut short in the most disgusting of circumstances. And then he went on to say that his own client had behaved appallingly on that day.
Here's a voice actor reading the words spoken in court by Christian Porter.
At no point will I try to put any lipstick on the pig of my client's atrocious behavior. He was behaving in an utterly and totally appalling way, but he did not strike Cassius Turvy.
So he's telling the jury that while his client did some things that were appalling and there are no excuses, he's not guilty of murder.
Christian Porter said vis of Jack Breally, the man the Crown says is the real attacker.
He is pointing the finger at his former friend to save his own skin. This is the desperate act of someone who had proved to be a thug, a bully and a coward.
Page Taylors are Indigenous Affairs right now, and she's one of the smartest and most diligent journals around. We can't do The Australian's type of journalism, fair and fearless without the support of our subscribers, so if you like what you hear, consider subscribing at the Australian dot com dot au