Three men convicted over the killing of Aboriginal schoolboy Cassius Turvey are being sentenced in the WA Supreme Court.
Cassius Turvey, 15, was chased down and savagely beaten with a metal pole while walking with friends after school in Perth’s east, in October 2022.
Jack Brearley, 24, and Brodie Palmer, 30, were found guilty of murdering Cassius, while Mitchell Forth, 27, was found guilty of manslaughter.
Two other offenders, Aleesha Gilmore, 23, and Ethan MacKenzie, 21, have also been convicted of abducting and assaulting other teenagers in the days before Cassius was hunted.
Chief Justice Peter Quinlan is set to begin handing down sentences for all five offenders from 10am WST.
Mother speaks of deep trauma
The court previously heard the incidents were part of a pattern of targeting children with weapons to seek revenge after Brearley’s car windows were smashed.
Police have said Cassius was innocent and not involved in the smashing of the car windows.
Cassius’s mother Mechelle Turvey delivered a powerful victim impact statement on the first day of the sentencing hearing, describing her son’s death as “racially motivated” vigilantism.
While race was not alleged by prosecutors as a motive behind the attack, Justice Quinlan told the court it was an aggravating factor.
“A group of predominantly Aboriginal kids are together, and a smaller group of non-Aboriginal adults descends upon them, and those adults are speaking to the kids using racist epithets or language,” he said.
“The very fact of the objective events is going to cause a legitimate sense that these kids were targeted because they were Aboriginal,” he said.