Share this @internewscast.com
WARNING: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers are advised this story contains an image of a person who is deceased.
It took about four hours for an injured Indigenous teenager, who died in hospital days after an allegedly murderous attack, to be seen by a doctor, a court has been told.
Cassius Turvey, a 15-year-old Noongar Yamatji boy, died 10 days after prosecutors say he was chased, knocked to the ground and “deliberately struck to the head” with a metal pole in Perth’s eastern suburbs on October 13, 2022.
Aleesha Louise Gilmore, 23, her boyfriend Jack Steven James Brearley, 23, and his mates Brodie Lee Palmer, 29, and Mitchell Colin Forth, 26, are on trial, charged with murdering Cassius.
William Begg treated Cassius at Midland hospital about 9.30pm on the day he was allegedly attacked.
He told the court Cassius had suffered multiple head injuries, including a five-centimetre laceration on his forehead.
“It penetrated all layers of the skin to expose the skull,” Begg told the West Australian Supreme Court today.
“It was quite a clean laceration.”
He also found a bruise near Cassius’s temple and a “complex” wound that “penetrated the full thickness of (his) ear”.
He observed that Cassius was asking the same questions repeatedly, prompting Begg to order a CT scan of his head.
That found bleeding inside Cassius’s brain and bleeding between his brain and his skull.
The jury heard paramedics arrived at the hospital about 5.30pm and Begg treated Cassius soon after he was triaged.
Under cross-examination by Brearley’s lawyer Simon Watters, Begg said he was unaware of the delay.
For 24/7 crisis support run by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, contact 13YARN (13 92 76).
Readers seeking support can contact Lifeline on 13 11 14 or beyond blue on 1300 22 4636.