Cassius Turvey murder trial: Brodie Palmer’s lawyer argues client not aware co-accused’s ‘murderous intent’

A lawyer for one of the men on trial for the murder of Cassius Turvey has argued there was no evidence his client knew of his co-accused’s “murderous intent” when they set off searching for teenagers to allegedly attack them. In his closing submissions, Christian Porter said while Brodie Palmer was willing to “get involved” there was no way he could have known beyond reasonable doubt of his co-accused Jack Brearley’s “dark rageful intentions”. Mr Palmer and Mr Brearley, along with Aleesha Gilmore and Mitchell Forth, have been on trial in the Supreme Court for almost 12 weeks charged with the murder of Cassius who died from bleeding on the brain ten days after he was bashed with a metal pole in Middle Swan on October 13, 2022. Prosecutors allege it was Mr Brearley who delivered the fatal blow but that Mr Palmer, Mr Forth and Ms Gilmore were also responsible because they were party to a common purpose – to search for and attack with weapons school-aged children. The trial has been told the night before the attack on Cassius, Mr Brearley’s car windows were smashed in retaliation for another alleged attack on two other teens four days before, that he, Ms Gilmore, Mr Forth and another man, Ethan MacKenzie, were also on trial for. Prosecutors allege the quartet went out searching for those responsible for smashing Mr Brearley’s car windows and for those Ms Gilmore claimed were planning to run through her house and bash her younger brother. The State claims Mr Palmer and Forth aided Mr Brearley in the moments before Cassius was struck by acting as backup and that Ms Gilmore — who was not at the oval at the time of the attack — was responsible because she knew and was part of the group that went searching for those children. But in his closing address, Mr Porter argued if his client was party to the common purpose and knew of Mr Brearley’s specific murderous intention, then why did he stop Mr Brearley from carrying out that purpose. He said there was evidence from a number of witnesses who said a muscly man in black pulled the tall skinny man off Cassius and that one heard the man in black say: “Jack, stop. That’s enough”. “If Brodie Palmer actually knows Jack Brearley has this murderous intention to catch someone… to bash their head in with metal pole.... why at the moment Jack Brearley executes some part of the common purpose does Brodie Palmer stop him? ” he said. Mr Porter told the jury that even though there were “three men operating in common, in concert to some extent in the field that day”, it could also be argued from his client’s position that his intention “was different to that of Jack Brearley’s, different enough that murder was not a probable consequence”. “But where the prosecution case is significantly – I’d say very significantly stronger is on manslaughter, which is about whether the unlawful purpose - the common intention for an unlawful purpose would have an accidental death as a result, and I am not going to argue against that proposition,” Mr Porter said. “Brodie Palmer was willing to get himself involved in something in the field that day, and that something was unlawful. You may well form that conclusion. But that something was not so high, and not so shared with the high common intention for an unlawful purpose of Jack Brearley that murder was a probable result, more likely that a non-intentional killing was a probable result of the common intention.” The trial continues.