A man accused of murdering an Indigenous teenager with a metal pole was a vengeful bully, a coward, extremely violent and fuelled by white-hot rage, a court has been told.
Cassius Turvey, a 15-year-old Noongar Yamatji boy, died in hospital 10 days after he was allegedly attacked in Perth's eastern suburbs on October 13, 2022.
Jack Steven James Brearley, 23, Brodie Lee Palmer, 29, Mitchell Colin Forth, 26, and Aleesha Louise Gilmore, 23, have denied murdering him.
On the second day of an estimated 40-day trial, Brearley's lawyer, Simon Watters, denied his client wielded the weapon that killed Cassius, as prosecutors allege, and said his mate did the deed.
He told the jury Cassius, who was with a "large mob" of about 20 teenagers, slashed Brearley's leg with a knife after the pair struggled on the ground.
"Mr Brearley called out to Brodie Palmer: 'Help I've been stabbed'," he told the West Australian Supreme Court on Tuesday during his opening statement.
"He turned and saw Mr Palmer standing there. He was older, bigger and meaner."
Mr Watters said that as Brearley "limped" away he saw Palmer allegedly strike Cassius in the head area with a metal pole taken from a shopping trolley.
"He heard Cassius scream and yelled for Mr Palmer to stop," he said as he previewed the evidence the jury would likely hear during the trial.
Palmer's lawyer, former federal attorney-general Christian Porter, forcefully denied Brearley's claim during his opening remarks.
"This is a desperate act of someone that will be proved to be a bully and coward and who is now pointing the finger at his former friend to save his own skin," he said.
He said Brearley was prone to extreme violence and filled with white-hot rage fuelling mis-targeted revenge, and the assertion that Palmer struck Cassius was "plainly and clearly wrong".
"My client was behaving in an utterly appalling way but he did not strike Cassius Turvey," Mr Porter said, adding Palmer was "idiotic".
"Brearley was so totally enraged ... Mr Palmer never shared that rage."
He described Cassius as a beautiful boy whose life was cut short in the "most disgusting of circumstances".
The prosecution alleged that Brearley stuck Cassius in the head with a metal shopping trolley because somebody had smashed his car windows a day earlier.
It said Forth, Palmer and Gilmore helped him and knew what his intent was.
Gilmore's lawyer, Simon Freitag, said his client wasn't involved and she was 500 metres to a kilometre away from her co-accused when Cassius was allegedly murdered.
"She did not see with her own eyes what happened. She did not see who hit him," he said.
"She did not know he would be fatally injured and she did not want anyone to be injured."
Mr Freitag conceded Gilmore had lied to police and acted foolishly.
Prosecutor Ben Stanwix told the jury they should only assess the evidence heard in the court when coming to a verdict.
He said many people had previously said the alleged murder was racially motivated but they had not "heard all the things you will see and hear".
"What a luxury for them ... but that cannot happen here in this courtroom," he said as he finished his opening statement.
"Let me make this clear: it is not the state's case it was racially motivated."
He conceded the jury would hear racially motivated evidence, such as people saying: "Black this".
The trial continues on Wednesday.
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