A group of teenagers and adults is accused of targeting and torturing a 17-year-old boy before allegedly restraining him with zip ties and wrapping him in plastic.
Queensland Police said that at 6.35am on July 18, the alleged victim was found by a jogger in bushland off Cape Pallarenda Road in Townsville.
Police allege he was ‘dumped’ there, wrapped in plastic and bound with zip ties, after being assaulted by a group, some of whom were related to him, hours before.
The boy was transported to Townsville University Hospital where he underwent surgery after suffering a spinal fracture, fractured tibia and a broken nose.
‘This wasn’t a random attack,’ Dave Miles of the Townsville Child Abuse and Sexual Crime Unit said on Friday.
‘This was orchestrated by a cohort of individuals in relation to this young person.’
Mr Miles told reporters the teenager may have made ‘some commentary’ towards members of the group at a house before the alleged incident.
However, he said the information had come ‘third hand’ and was ‘certainly nothing that warranted the level of assault and the injuries that this young person sustained’.
Queensland Police said that at 6.35am on July 18, a 17-year-old boy was found by a jogger in bushland off Cape Pallarenda Road in Townsville after he was allegedly tortured
Detective Senior Sergeant David Miles (pictured) said it was a targeted attack
Mr Miles said the boy knew some of the people at the address where the alleged torture took place, but other alleged attackers were strangers.
A 13-year-old Deeragun boy was charged with four offences including grievous bodily harm and torture on July 24 and appeared at the children’s court that day.
On July 28, a 35-year-old Kirwan woman was charged with five offences including grievous bodily harm and torture. She is due to appear in Townsville Magistrates Court on September 28.
A 14-year-old Kirwan girl was previously charged with four offences including grievous bodily harm and torture, and has been dealt with under the provisions of the Youth Justice Act.
Seven people, aged between 14 and 40, then faced Townsville Magistrates Court on Saturday after they were charged with multiple offences, including grievous bodily harm and torture, according to ABC News.
During the hearing, police prosecutors told the court two relatives of the teenager had made allegations about him in the run up to the alleged assault.
The teenager was allegedly kicked and whipped with a ‘horse whip’ before being left ‘crawling out onto the road’, where the alleged assault continued, the court was told.
Prosecutors told the court a carload of alleged attackers, who were not known to the teenager, then arrived and allegedly hit the boy with a bat and a metal implement.
Townsville Magistrates Court was told the teenager was allegedly kicked and whipped with a ‘horse whip’ before being left ‘crawling out onto the road’
‘This is some of the most serious types of offences we might see in this court … yet alone offences that have been committed by a juvenile,’ police prosecutor Harriet Hearn told the court.
The court heard that one of the group, a 15-year-old boy, had a limited, recent criminal history.
His defence lawyer, Sarah Belford, told the magistrate the case against him was ‘circumstantial’ and he was not a participant but party to the offences.
Magistrate Mosch said he required confirmation that the 15-year-old would comply with any bail conditions and ordered he be assessed for an electronic monitoring device when the matter returns to Youth Justice on August 13.
Police will check the addresses of three co-accused who plan to apply for bail. Their matter will return to court on August 10.
The remaining three co-accused had their case adjourned to the same day.
