A man accused of murdering an Indigenous teenager in Perth with a metal pole has told a jury it was his co-accused who hit the boy and that he only punched him.
Cassius Turvey, a 15-year-old Noongar Yamatji boy, died 10 days after prosecutors say he was chased down and “deliberately struck to the head” with a metal pole in Perth’s eastern suburbs on 13 October 2022.
Aleesha Gilmore, 23, her boyfriend, Jack Brearley, 24, and his friends Brodie Palmer, 29, and Mitchell Forth, 26, are on trial for the teenager’s murder.
Giving evidence in his own defence, Brearley said he chased Cassius towards a creek and after the teenager slowed down and he tripped on a piece of wire in the bush, the pair ended up on the ground.
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“He stabbed me in the leg … [with] a black steak knife,” he told the West Australian supreme court in Perth on Thursday.
Brearley said he tried to flee but Cassius held on to his shorts.
“He cut me once, then I punched him and he cut me another time,” he said in response to questioning by his lawyer Simon Watters.
Brearley said he landed two blows on Cassius’s face and yelled to Palmer that he had been stabbed.
“I put my foot in between [Cassius’s] neck and cheek ... tried to push against him so he would let go,” he said.
Brearley said he was several paces away from Cassius when he saw Palmer with a shopping trolley handle.
“He ran past me and ran towards where the boy was and I looked back and I seen him hit him ... with a trolley pole,” he said.
Brearley said he heard “a bit of a scream” and yelled out for Palmer to stop.
He also gave evidence about a conversation with Palmer later in the evening.
“He just said he couldn’t trust me to keep my mouth closed and that if I was to say anything to police, Aleesha and I would end up in body bags,” Brearley said.
Brearley told the court that Palmer had admitted that he struck Cassius and said “he overreacted over me getting stabbed”.
The court heard the pair had known each other for about six months and that Brearley sold cannabis for Palmer.
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Brearley also gave evidence about the lead-up to the alleged attack on Cassius, telling the jury that Gilmore had received messages on her phone saying “a whole group of people were coming to run through our house”.
Brearley said the alleged threats came a day after youths had smashed his car’s windows outside the home he shared with Gilmore and her family.
Asked about the metal poles that prosecutors allege Brearley and his co-accused pulled from shopping trolleys found in an alleyway, Brearley said he was not in the alley but he was handed a pole.
“I ended up rethinking the situation and I left it in the driveway ... I thought they were like kids ... no point in us having weapons,” he said.
Brearley told the jury that he, Palmer, Forth and Gilmore went looking for a group of about 10 to 20 people they believed were responsible for the threats to Gilmore’s home.
“I just thought we would scare them off a little bit ... using words,” he said.
Asked about a CCTV recording from Gilmore’s house, Brearley admitted he had said: “Someone smashed my windows and they are about to die.
“I was just used to saying stupid things like that. There was no intention for it to mean anything,” he said. “It’s not worth killing someone over a smashed window.”
The trial continues.
