KATE CAMPBELL
A Perth teenager was acquitted last night of killing his 16-year-old friend whose body was found in a car the accused boy had torched to cover up the pair’s break-in.
The 17-year-old looked relieved but composed when a Supreme Court jury found him not guilty of the manslaughter of his friend after deliberating for about 2½ hours. Security arrangements were in place in case the victim’s family, who watched the trial from a nearby courtroom, confronted the accused, but there were no dramas outside the District Court.
The boy claimed he made sure no one was inside the Holden Astra when he set the vehicle alight in the carpark of Bassendean Village Shopping Centre early on September 28. He told detectives he thought his friend had “disappeared” after they broke into and rummaged through the car.
The jury was given conflicting scenarios — whether the victim was in the car when the accused set it alight but was not noticed or that the victim got into the car after it was on fire.
Defence lawyer Simon Freitag suggested the victim might have died in a heroic but mistaken attempt to rescue his friend he thought was in the car.
He said the death was a tragic accident and many parts of the case would likely remain a mystery.
Prosecutor Justin Whalley argued the accused was criminally negligent and it was “inconceivable” the victim would get into the burning car, which had its four doors shut.
The boys, whose names were suppressed, were drinking alcohol before the car break-in with the victim almost four times over the limit.
Commissioner Kevin Sleight, who presided, told the jury that despite conflicting evidence, it seemed the boys were close and spent time together.
The car’s owner, a 31-year-old man dressed in women’s clothes when he left the car to find water, hid in hedges because he was too scared to approach the boys. But he saw one walk away and call out for his friend to hurry up. When he emerged soon after, the car was on fire.
Mr Freitag argued the boy seen to leave was the victim who left before the fire started but returned. The older boy was in custody last night to be sentenced for torching the car.