WARNING: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers are advised this story contains an image of a person who is deceased.

Jack Steven James Brearley, 24, told a jury that prosecutors had it wrong and he didn’t strike Cassius Turvey in the head with a metal pole in Perth’s eastern suburbs on October 13, 2022.

He said his co-accused, Brodie Lee Palmer, 29, swung the blows that led to the 15-year-old Noongar Yamatji boy’s death in hospital 10 days later after taking the stand yesterday.

But he agreed today during cross-examination by Palmer’s lawyer, Christian Porter, that there were multiple inconsistencies with his defence story and that was a problem.

They relate to his assertion that he had a physical altercation with only one person on the day of the incident and that person was Cassius.

Brearley’s evidence was that Cassius was wearing a green shirt and the teen had slashed him with a knife during a scuffle in the bush.

But Porter took him to previous statements to police where he said the person with the knife was a “big Kiwi fella” with a blonde rat’s tail hair style and wearing a grey shirt.

Another was his evidence that he only punched Cassius twice in the head and the blows caused a cut to the teen’s eyebrow area.

Brearley agreed multiple witnesses involved in Cassius’s medical treatment hadn’t seen or recorded the injury.

Brearley’s descriptions to the jury and police of the location near or in a creek where he said his fight with Cassius happened was also shown to be inconsistent.

Porter said a further problem for Brearley was the “sheer weight of eyewitness evidence” that a “skinny man” caused Cassius’s fatal injuries.

“Evidence about you hitting Cassius with a pole,” he told the West Australian Supreme Court.

Brearley: “That is a problem for them, but it’s not what happened.”

Porter: “You are lying through your teeth.”

Brearley’s girlfriend Aleesha Louise Gilmore, 23, and one of his co-workers Mitchell Colin Forth, 26, are also on trial, charged with murdering Cassius.

Prosecutors allege Brearley chased Cassius down and deliberately struck him in the head with a metal shopping trolley pole while he was “hunting for kids” because somebody had smashed his car windows.

They allege Forth, Palmer and Gilmore helped him and knew his intent before the incident.

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.