A man accused of murder who blamed his co-accused for the death of Indigenous teenager Cassius Turvey has had his version of events challenged while giving evidence in his defence.
During testimony on Thursday at the West Australian supreme court, Jack Brearley, 24, told a jury that prosecutors had it wrong and he did not strike the 15-year-old in the head with a metal pole in Perth’s eastern suburbs on 13 October 2022.
He said his co-accused, Brodie Palmer, 29, swung the blows that led to the Noongar Yamatji boy’s death in hospital 10 days later.
But he agreed on Friday during cross-examination by Palmer’s lawyer, Christian Porter, that there were multiple inconsistencies with his defence story and that was a problem.
They relate to his assertion that he had a physical altercation with only one person on the day of the incident and that person was Cassius.
Brearley’s evidence was that Cassius was wearing a green shirt and the teen had slashed him with a knife during a scuffle in the bush.
But Porter took him to previous statements to police where he said the person with the knife was a “big Kiwi fella” with a blond rat’s tail hairstyle and wearing a grey shirt.
Another was his evidence that he only punched Cassius twice in the head and the blows caused a cut to the teen’s eyebrow area.
Brearley agreed multiple witnesses involved in Cassius’s medical treatment had not seen or recorded the injury.
Brearley’s descriptions to the jury and police of the location near or in a creek where he said his fight with Cassius happened were also called into question.
Porter challenged Brearley based on the “sheer weight of eyewitness evidence” that a “skinny man” caused Cassius’s fatal injuries.
“Evidence about you hitting Cassius with a pole,” he told the court.
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Brearley: “That is a problem for them, but it’s not what happened.”
Porter: “You are lying through your teeth.”
Brearley: “I disagree.”
Brearley’s girlfriend Aleesha Gilmore, 23, and one of his co-workers Mitchell Forth, 26, are also on trial, charged with murdering Cassius.
Prosecutors allege Brearley chased Cassius down and deliberately struck him in the head with a metal shopping trolley pole while he was “hunting for kids” because somebody had smashed his car windows. Brearley has told the court his intention was just to warn off the teenagers.
They allege Forth, Palmer and Gilmore helped him and knew his intent before the incident.
The case continues.