The Wire

Two women have been jailed for life for their part in the torture and murder of a 14-year-old Aboriginal boy, in what’s been described as a racially motivated attack. Derrin Elizabeth Bardsley and Rebecca Tilaima Papalii have both admitted helping to hogtie, beat and kill Cleon Jackman in Perth’s southern suburbs in 1999. The women successfully appealed against their conviction of wilfully murdering the boy, and were due to face a retrial until they pleaded guilty to the lesser charge of simple murder. WA Supreme Court, prosecutor Phil Urquhart has described the murder as a racially motivated, cowardly and gutless attack on the teenager, who the women thought was responsible for break-ins at a house owned by Bardsley. Bardsley will serve a minimum twelve and half years in prison, and Papalii 12 years.