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Key Points
- Chief Justice Peter Quinlan sentenced the offenders in the WA Supreme Court on Friday.
- Cassius Turvey died in hospital 10 days after he was deliberately struck to the head in October 2022.
- Three men involved in the boy’s murder will serve jail sentences.
This article contains references/and or images of a deceased Indigenous person/Torres Strait Islander/Aboriginal person.
The mother of a teenage boy who died after being chased into bushland and violently murdered with a metal pole has labelled those responsible for his murder “monsters”.
Mechelle Turvey spoke to media outside the Supreme Court of WA on Friday after two men were given life sentences and another, a lengthy jail sentence over his death.
Cassius Turvey, a Noongar Yamatji boy, died in hospital 10 days after he was deliberately struck to the head in Perth’s eastern suburbs on 13 October 2022.
Jack Steven James Brearley, 24, and Brodie Lee Palmer, 30, who were convicted in May of murdering the 15-year-old, were sentenced to life in prison and will not be eligible for parole until 2044 and 2041.
Mitchell Colin Forth, 27, who had been found guilty of manslaughter, will be eligible for parole in January 2033.
Following the sentencing, Turvey expressed dismay that Brearley may already be considering appealing the sentence, saying he and his co-offenders showed no remorse.
“For them to just lie after they saw the evidence against them is testament that they are all monsters,” she said.
The attack on Cassius followed a complex series of events that started on 9 October when Forth, Brearley, his then-girlfriend Aleesha Gilmore and another man who was tried on lesser charges, Ethan Robert MacKenzie, 21, “snatched two kids off the street” before punching, kicking and stabbing one of them.
Four days later, Brearley and his co-accused allegedly armed themselves with metal poles pulled from shopping trolleys before climbing into Palmer’s ute and driving off to search for youths before they came across Cassius.
Sentences have been handed down for those involved in the death of 15-year-old Cassius Turvey. Credit: NITV News
The trial had heard Brearley had said in a phone call that Cassius had “learnt his lesson” and outside court on Friday, Turvey said “well he has learned a life lesson now”.
Turvey said she was happy with the sentences that had been handed down, apart from that given to 23-year-old, Gilmore.
The five defendants variously faced 20 charges over the events of 9 October and 13.
The jury found them guilty of all except Gilmore’s murder charge and a theft charge faced by Brearley.
Gilmore was sentenced to one year and three months, conditionally suspended for 24 months.
MacKenzie received two years and six months and will be eligible for parole in November.
There was an outpouring of community sentiment in the Perth suburb of Midland following the murder of local teenager Cassius Turvey. Source: AAP / Asron Bunch
Turvey said the sentences did not change what had happened.
“But Cassius isn’t here with us, you know, a beautiful boy, and all the beautiful boys that were involved, that were traumatised that week, they’re all scarred,” she said.
“No mother should have to visit the grave of a 15-year-old innocent child who done absolutely nothing.”
Chief Justice Peter Quinlan said the killers had cut Cassius’s life short in a horrendous and vengeful act of aggression, violence and brutality.
“Cassius Turvey was robbed of his life and of his promise … all because you killed him, Mr Brearley,” he said.
Brearley had a complete lack of remorse and had lied throughout the trial while giving evidence, falsely accusing Cassius of knifing him and attempting to blame an innocent man for the killing, Quinlan said.
“Mr Brearley, you were the person who killed Cassius Turvey in that fit of rage and brutality,” he said.
“While you did not intend to kill Cassius Turvey, your attack was persistent and sustained and only stopped by the arrival of Mr Palmer.”
Quinlan said Palmer had failed to accept responsibility for his crimes and there were few mitigating factors to reduce his non parole period.
“You do not have the benefit of a plea of guilty … and you do not have the benefit of good character,” he said.
Quinlan said Forth was never the main offender in the shameful course of events but always there in the background.
“You were just following along in the excitement of trying to be a tough guy,” he said.
“And you followed Mr Brearley all the way to a conviction for manslaughter.”
Brearley delivered the fatal blows on Cassius while “hunting for kids” because somebody had smashed his car windows.
Quinlan also addressed claims that the attack on Cassius was racially motivated, saying the killers used racial slurs to refer to him and other children he was with.
“It was no surprise that an attack by a group of non-Indigenous adult men on a group of predominantly Aboriginal children using racial slurs that resulted in a boy’s death would have been interpreted as racially driven,” he said.
“That fear is real and it is legitimate,” Quinlan said.
Turvey said while the sentencing did not bring her closure, she acknowledged it was “a stepping stone today, it’s the start of something.”
— With additional reporting from the Australian Associated Press.
