KATE CAMPBELL
A 17-year-old boy fighting a manslaughter charge claimed he did not think his friend was in a car they had broken into when he “lit it up” but thought his close mate had “disappeared”.
The teenager is on trial over his friend’s death in the car fire early on September 28 last year at Bassendean Village Shopping Centre.
In a videoed interview made about 24 hours after the incident, which was played to a Supreme Court jury yesterday, he said he and his 16-year-old friend burgled the Holden Astra after drinking alcohol.
The boy said he lit a sheepskin seat cover to get rid of fingerprints and the car “burned quickly”.
He repeatedly told detectives no one was in the car when he torched it and that he did not know how his friend ended up in it. “I thought he walked off . . . he just disappeared,” he said.
He said that after fleeing he looked for his friend.