Teen acquitted of burning friend in car
A Perth young man has been found not guilty of the manslaughter of his friend who died in a car fire after the dyad had broken into the vehicle.
The 17-year-old boy, who denied the manslaughter do battle with during a four-day Supreme Court trial, claimed no one was entrails the car when he set it alight.
The jury took about two and a half hours to acquit the young man.
The 16-year-old victim's body was found reversed a burnt-out Holden Astra in the car park of the Bassendean Village Shopping Focal point in the early hours of September 28 last year.
The accused teen admitted to police officers the pair had broken into the car and that he set a front seat cover on fire to destroy any evidence of fingerprints.
But Solemn prosecutor Justin Whalley argued the fair game must have been in the car at the time the accused set the fire and he failed to check aptly, meaning he was criminally negligent.
The accused teen's shelter lawyer Simon Freitag called the boy's undoing a "tragic accident". He suggested to the jury that the casualty had fled the scene but returned when seeing the car sparkling, and that his death may have been a "heroic" but mistaken rescue have a go based on the misconception that the accused was trapped in the ablaze car.
I could ask correspond to questions about my family, and myself – English boy car stricken from reading fantasy novels in the backseat, bickering with my brothers,