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Perth Now
24-07-2025
- Perth Now
Indigenous teen's killer appeals verdicts and sentence
One of the men found guilty of killing an Indigenous teenager, who was chased into bushland and violently bashed, is appealing his convictions and sentence. Cassius Turvey, a Noongar Yamatji boy, died in hospital 10 days after he was deliberately struck to the head with a metal pole in Perth's eastern suburbs on October 13, 2022. Jack Steven James Brearley, 24, and Brodie Lee Palmer, 30, were sentenced to life behind bars for murdering the 15-year-old after a 12-week trial in the West Australian Supreme Court. Mitchell Colin Forth, 27, who was also accused of Cassius's murder, was found guilty of manslaughter and sentenced to a total 12 years' imprisonment, eligible for parole after serving 10 years. He has since lodged legal challenges against his convictions and manslaughter sentence imposed by Chief Justice Peter Quinlan. The guilty verdicts were unreasonable and unsupported, and the nine-year sentence for manslaughter was excessive given the circumstances, court documents said. Forth, who was convicted of six offences, was also given cumulative terms of one year and two years for two counts of deprivation of liberty committed on October 9 against two other youths. Forth will be eligible for parole in January 2033 after his sentence was backdated to January 2023. His other convictions for two counts of assault and stealing are for offences committed on October 9 and 13, for which he was handed concurrent sentences totalling five years and two months. Brearley delivered the fatal blows on Cassius while "hunting for kids" because somebody had smashed his car windows. He chased Cassius into bushland and knocked the teen to the ground and hit him in the head with a metal pole, causing bleeding in his brain that led to his death. When delivering the sentences for the three men in June, Justice Quinlan said the trio had cut Cassius's life short in a horrendous and vengeful act of aggression, violence and brutality. He 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," the judge said. "And you followed Mr Brearley all the way to a conviction for manslaughter." Brearley will be eligible for parole after serving 22 years and Palmer after serving 18 years. 13YARN 13 92 76 Lifeline 13 11 14
Sydney Morning Herald
24-07-2025
- Sydney Morning Herald
WA news LIVE: Man convicted over Cassius Turvey's death appeals sentence
Latest posts Pinned post from 9.40am Man convicted of Cassius Turvey's killing appeals sentence, says he should never have been found guilty By Mitchell Forth, one of the men who was convicted of being involved in the killing of Swan View schoolboy Cassius Turvey, will appeal his sentence. Forth, 27, was acquitted of murder by a Supreme Court of WA jury in May, but found guilty of the lesser charge of manslaughter and sentenced to 12 years in prison over the 15-year-old's death in 2022. He received a nine-year sentence for the manslaughter and a total of three years for other assaults and stealings that occurred in the days before. Cassius was killed after being chased across a vacant reserve in the east Perth suburb of Middle Swan by local thugs Brodie Palmer and Jack Brearley. It was Brearley, Chief Justice Peter Quinlan found, who delivered the fatal blows to Cassius' head with the metal handle of a shopping trolley. Cassius died in hospital from those injuries 10 days later. The trio, as well as Brearley's then-girlfriend Aleesha Gilmore, were charged with his murder but pleaded not guilty, and the matter was taken to a 12-week trial earlier this year. Loading Gilmore was eventually acquitted of any involvement in Cassius' death but found guilty of other offences in the days before. Brearley and Palmer were sentenced to life in prison. In documents lodged with the WA Court of Appeal this week, Forth's legal team have stated they will appeal against his conviction and his sentence. 'The verdict of guilty on which the conviction is based should be set aside because having regard to the evidence it is unreasonable or cannot be supported,' it read. A second document stated that his sentence of nine years solely for the manslaughter charge was 'manifestly excessive given his personal circumstances and the circumstances of his offending'. Throughout the trial, Forth maintained that he was not part of the group that chased Cassius and other indigenous teens across the reserve, but prosecutors said he could still be convicted of murder or manslaughter because he was with them at the time. 9.39am Across Australia and around the world Here's what is making headlines elsewhere today: The federal government has lifted its longstanding de facto ban on US beef, addressing one of the key trade complaints that President Donald Trump used to justify his tariffs on Australia while starting a fight with the Nationals. The Albanese government will march forward with its legislative agenda after introducing two key draft laws on Wednesday. Labor is hoping the passage of its bills will be expedited with support from the Coalition, which also appears receptive to its student debt reduction bill. In the first question time of the 48th parliament on Wednesday, the government and opposition exchanged blows on topics ranging from housing affordability to climate change policy and superannuation tax reform. Former prime minister Scott Morrison has warned the United States Congress that Australians are at risk of 'going to sleep' on the security threat posed by China, and warned the US and its allies that they must be prepared to wear economic pain to stand up to Beijing. He later told reporters that Australians' level of awareness of the security threat posed by China had clearly diminished significantly over the past three years. Countries besieged by the effects of climate change can legally pursue their neighbours for reparations if they fail to uphold their obligations to curb emissions, a top court has found. The historic advisory ruling was handed down by the International Court of Justice and paves the way for massive compensation claims in a case brought by a group of law students from Vanuatu. 9.38am Today's weather
The Age
24-07-2025
- The Age
WA news LIVE: Man convicted over Cassius Turvey's death appeals sentence
Latest posts Pinned post from 9.40am Man convicted of Cassius Turvey's killing appeals sentence, says he should never have been found guilty By Mitchell Forth, one of the men who was convicted of being involved in the killing of Swan View schoolboy Cassius Turvey, will appeal his sentence. Forth, 27, was acquitted of murder by a Supreme Court of WA jury in May, but found guilty of the lesser charge of manslaughter and sentenced to 12 years in prison over the 15-year-old's death in 2022. He received a nine-year sentence for the manslaughter and a total of three years for other assaults and stealings that occurred in the days before. Cassius was killed after being chased across a vacant reserve in the east Perth suburb of Middle Swan by local thugs Brodie Palmer and Jack Brearley. It was Brearley, Chief Justice Peter Quinlan found, who delivered the fatal blows to Cassius' head with the metal handle of a shopping trolley. Cassius died in hospital from those injuries 10 days later. The trio, as well as Brearley's then-girlfriend Aleesha Gilmore, were charged with his murder but pleaded not guilty, and the matter was taken to a 12-week trial earlier this year. Loading Gilmore was eventually acquitted of any involvement in Cassius' death but found guilty of other offences in the days before. Brearley and Palmer were sentenced to life in prison. In documents lodged with the WA Court of Appeal this week, Forth's legal team have stated they will appeal against his conviction and his sentence. 'The verdict of guilty on which the conviction is based should be set aside because having regard to the evidence it is unreasonable or cannot be supported,' it read. A second document stated that his sentence of nine years solely for the manslaughter charge was 'manifestly excessive given his personal circumstances and the circumstances of his offending'. Throughout the trial, Forth maintained that he was not part of the group that chased Cassius and other indigenous teens across the reserve, but prosecutors said he could still be convicted of murder or manslaughter because he was with them at the time. 9.39am Across Australia and around the world Here's what is making headlines elsewhere today: The federal government has lifted its longstanding de facto ban on US beef, addressing one of the key trade complaints that President Donald Trump used to justify his tariffs on Australia while starting a fight with the Nationals. The Albanese government will march forward with its legislative agenda after introducing two key draft laws on Wednesday. Labor is hoping the passage of its bills will be expedited with support from the Coalition, which also appears receptive to its student debt reduction bill. In the first question time of the 48th parliament on Wednesday, the government and opposition exchanged blows on topics ranging from housing affordability to climate change policy and superannuation tax reform. Former prime minister Scott Morrison has warned the United States Congress that Australians are at risk of 'going to sleep' on the security threat posed by China, and warned the US and its allies that they must be prepared to wear economic pain to stand up to Beijing. He later told reporters that Australians' level of awareness of the security threat posed by China had clearly diminished significantly over the past three years. Countries besieged by the effects of climate change can legally pursue their neighbours for reparations if they fail to uphold their obligations to curb emissions, a top court has found. The historic advisory ruling was handed down by the International Court of Justice and paves the way for massive compensation claims in a case brought by a group of law students from Vanuatu. 9.38am Today's weather
The Guardian
13-07-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Irvine Welsh: ‘I'm often astounded that any relationships take place these days'
I was born in the great port of Leith. Stories are in my blood; listening to them, telling them. My family were typical of many in the area, moving from tenement to council scheme, increasingly further down the Forth estuary. I was brought up in a close community. I left school with practically no qualifications. I tended towards the interesting kids, the troublemakers. All my own fault. I was always encouraged to be more scholarly by my parents, who valued education. But I left school and became an apprentice technician, doing a City & Guilds course. I hated it. I was always a writer: I just didn't know it. I cite being crap at everything else in evidence. It's why I've never stopped writing stories about my youth and my go-to gang of characters from Trainspotting. Their reaction to events and changes in the world helps inform my own. They've been given substance by people I've met down the decades, from Leith pubs to Ibiza clubs. But I have never seen myself as an author. If I wrote purely for publication, and let it become a franchise, it would just be another job, albeit an enjoyable one, and better than digging coal. But I never wanted it to be that. As far as I'm concerned, I'm a writer. I de facto retired from the world of work over 30 years ago, packing in my day job at the council to pursue my hobbies of writing and music. If I had the inclination for franchise building, I would have released my books sequentially, in a temporal order, following the characters' lives. If I wanted to chase literary prizes, I'd have written the kind of novels expected to appeal to the people who judge such affairs. Basically, I wait until something inspiring emerges – theme, event, character or storyline – to act as a catalyst and pique my interest in finally writing up my notes, sketches and stories to publishable standard. Skagboys was the first thing I wrote, appearing on my Amstrad word processor as the opening sections of Trainspotting. The resulting book was way too long, so I threw away that first part, opting to take the reader right into the drug-addled world of Renton, Sick Boy, Spud and co, all the way back in 1993. When I got older and more reflective, I thought I'd revisit how the protagonists got into the state they did before Trainspotting: I'd write about the Thatcherite destruction of the traditional working class. So Skagboys (2012) revisited old territory. But in the meantime, I had leapt ahead almost a decade into those characters' lives with Porno (2002). I saw that book as being about the increasing commodification of sex, as we moved into the internet age. Way further down the line, Dead Men's Trousers (2018) was inspired by my experiments with the drug DMT, and the even more astonishing phenomenon of Hibs winning the Scottish Cup. And now I'm back with those characters again. Men in Love, taking place directly after Trainspotting, opens on a junk-sick Renton sweating in an Amsterdam hotel room with his bag of cash, with Sick Boy ferreting around London on the perma-hustle, Spud and Second Prize back in Leith, trying to avoid heroin and alcohol – the drugs that chose them – and Begbie a guest of HMP Saughton. As the title suggests, Men in Love is mainly about that time in life when men (generally in their mid-20s) start taking the quest for romance more seriously. Sign up to Bookmarks Discover new books and learn more about your favourite authors with our expert reviews, interviews and news stories. Literary delights delivered direct to you after newsletter promotion Novels, no matter how well researched, composed or projected, are always – whether you like it or not – at least tangentially about you. Writing Men in Love made me realise that, when I stop running away from it, I've usually enjoyed love unquestioningly, without feeling the need to analyse or even understand it. The checklists of dating apps, articles, self-help books, the inventories of salient points of attraction, ideal types and red flags always seemed to me a boring, algorithmic and reductive response to a very human, mystical phenomenon. Much of what I've learned about love has been experiential, not observational, about not being gun-shy and diving in when the opportunity presented itself. And yes, some romantic sensibilities have been augmented by the imagination and insight of various novelists, from Jane Austen to James Kelman. Looking back now, it strikes me that your mid-20s is a strange time to be embarking on serious romance. Linked to traditional modes of commerce, procreation and survival, we remain culturally bound by such influences, driven to 'settle down'. Once ossified in our social structure, such imperatives are now fading, and perhaps it's about time. For men in their mid-20s, the influence of your partner suddenly becomes greater than that of your peers. It also seems that, in an atomised, narcissistic society, we are left less equipped than ever to meet our bonding needs. The nurturing 'village' of old is replaced by the shouty swamp of the online experience, where people are compelled to create ludicrous personas that they can't live up to in reality. No wonder so many people can no longer be bothered with the whole business. I'm often astounded that any relationships take place at all. Men in Love is my attempt to look at where men go wrong (and maybe sometimes right) in our efforts to subjugate our own pulsating needs to do daft, fabulous things like watch sport, get drunk and obsess about obscure musical offerings, for the greater good of romance, commerce, status, procreation, sex, and yes, L-O-V-E; whatever the motives for joining together with someone are. I think it is as much – probably more – a book for women, who acutely understand the nutters they went out with in their 'bad boy phase', as it is for such men (and I still count myself as only a semi-reformed version of that breed) to understand themselves. It's a crazy, romantic, joyous journey through our higher aspirations, and the inherently ridiculous mortal stupidity and selfishness that constantly undermines them. Things have changed since I wrote Trainspotting. The working class (like the middle class and the government) no longer have any money, trades or careers; just a patchwork quilt of precarious, low-paid jobs waiting to be destroyed by AI. Some deal drugs. This is usually not really for profit, but youths – like the preening oligarchs who dominate the world – need compelling drama. They engage in meaningless turf wars, constantly in search of their own dopamine hits to distract from the uselessness society has pushed them into; an existence of eating rubbish and watching crap on screens, bloating into obesity as their mental health crumbles. The working class are no longer represented by any political party. They have no voice: nobody will write about them, make films about them, far less advocate for them. They are expected to die quietly. Why publish Men in Love at this time? I think we need love more than ever. Loads of it. Orwell wrote: 'If there is hope, it lies with the proles.' I think now, if there is hope, it lies with the lovers. Men in Love by Irvine Welsh is published by Jonathan Cape on 24 July. To support the Guardian order your copy at Delivery charges may apply.
The Independent
15-06-2025
- Business
- The Independent
Royal Navy's newest warship takes to water for first time in Scotland
The Royal Navy's newest warship has taken to the water for the time time. HMS Venturer made its debut on the River Forth after four years of construction. It is one of five Type 31 frigates that will patrol the oceans this century. It was towed beneath the three Forth Crossings on Saturday evening to complete its construction in Rosyth. Some of the crew, shipwrights and engineers from Babcock International Group – who have worked on the ship – were on board for the 11-mile journey up the estuary. The vessel emerged from the assembly hall last month on a gigantic low-loader before being loaded onto a special partly submersible barge. Since then, experts at Babcock have been waiting for a suitable tidal window in the Forth estuary to allow the ship to be precisely floated off. That operation began on Monday, when the barge supporting the warship left Rosyth and sailed to deeper waters. Members of the new ship's crew worked with Babcock staff to ensure HMS Venturer successfully lifted off the barge safely. Once tugs were attached, the frigate was towed back up river on her maiden voyage with Venturer's senior naval officer, commander Chris Cozens. 'Getting Venturer's feet wet is not just a showpiece, it is the culmination of the structural stage of build before the rest of the fit out and commissioning completes,' he said. 'It has been impressive to see the pride and teamwork in the industrial staff, MoD and Royal Navy. 'There is a single aim to make Type 31 the best it can be and fit to be a Next Generation Frigate, delivering maritime security and humanitarian disaster relief around the world.' Once back at Rosyth, Venturer was manoeuvred into an inner base in the dockyard to allow Babcock and contractors to complete fitting out the frigate and begin commissioning its many systems and sensors as the vessel is prepared for her first sea trials. Sir Nick Hine, chief executive of Babcock's Marine Sector, said: 'In a complex and uncertain world, our ability to design, build and support advanced warships in the UK is more important than ever. 'HMS Venturer's first entry into the water is a clear demonstration of UK sovereign capability in action and the depth, resilience and expertise within Babcock's Marine business. 'This latest milestone exhibits the excellent progress being made across our multi-build programme, which will see us deliver five complex warships for the Royal Navy within a decade. 'This is engineering at its best, delivered, together with our partners, with pride, purpose and precision. HMS Venturer is just the beginning. 'My grandfather used to work at Harland and Wolff, so being involved with Venturer's first move into the Forth is a proud moment for me.' Lieutenant Dai Guthrie, the frigate's deputy marine engineer officer, said he was delighted to be involved at 'such a historic moment as Venturer entered the water for the first time'. He added: 'The operation has been an embodiment of the team ethos that has been ingrained in the build process thus far and a symbol of the progress that's being made to bring a frigate at the cutting edge of naval technology into service.' Operating from Portsmouth, HMS Venturer and its four sister vessels will conduct a variety of duties from thwarting drug smuggling activities to conducting board and search security operations and providing disaster relief.
