Five Teenagers Admit Manslaughter in Fatal Ambush of Man with Brain Injury

Five teenagers have admitted to their roles in luring and violently ambushing a man with an acquired brain injury to a New South Wales train station under the pretence he would have sex with a 13-year-old girl.

The four boys and one girl, who were aged between 13 and 15 when Jack Westren was fatally stabbed, pleaded guilty to manslaughter at Port Kembla Children's Court on Tuesday.

Mr Westren, who suffered a brain injury in a motor vehicle accident in 2008, died near Shellharbour Junction train station after being assaulted on January 28 last year.

Court documents state Mr Westren's medical issues manifested in various ways, including messaging girls on social media and asking them inappropriate questions.

His intellectual functioning was assessed to be in the "extremely low" range.

According to court documents, Mr Westren asked someone on Snapchat to give him a girl's phone number on the day of the attack.

That person gave him the number of a 13-year-old boy but said it belonged to "Amy".

Mr Westren began messaging that number, saying, "Do you have a boyfriend yes or no?"

The pair exchanged messages that discussed meeting up to have sex. The boy told Mr Westren him throughout the night "I want you" and "I like older boys".

Girl used as 'bait'

Court documents show the boy then shared screenshots of the messages exchanged between Mr Westren and "Amy" with his friends.

"There's a paedophile that we're trying to get to come to Shelly tomorrow youse want to bash him?" one message in the group chat said.

Video taken that night showed some of the boys in a front yard, wearing balaclavas and "simulating assaults, kidnapping and robberies with weapons", according to the documents.

The next day Mr Westren asked "Amy" what train she was going to catch to Shellharbour.

The boy and three friends, including a 13-year-old girl who would act as "bait", boarded a train to meet him while the boy continued to exchange messages with Mr Westren.

"You are with three boys. I saw you but you just didn't see me," Mr Westren said in a message while he was on the train.

Another group was waiting in Shellharbour, with some discussing in a group chat that they "were going to bring machetes".

Tamara Doust, 39, allegedly received a message from one of the boys that said, "Wanna come up Shelly? The boys are having a fight".

"Yeah G, what time?" she allegedly replied.

Ms Doust allegedly drove some of the boys to the mall, where they met up with the rest of the group and played games at Timezone before going to Shellharbour Junction.

She allegedly took 11 teenagers to the station, six of whom travelled in the boot.

In a video recording taken by the girl in the boot, one of the boys could be seen wearing a knuckleduster and saying "imagine this hitting him".

'What we did was good'

Court documents state that the ambush that followed was recorded by the girl on her mobile phone.

Ms Doust allegedly ran towards Mr Westren, hit him in the head and called him a "paedo".

He fell to the ground before the teenagers repeatedly kicked and punched him. One allegedly stabbed him in the heart and liver before they all fled back to the car.

People nearby ran to Mr Westren's aid and administered CPR until an ambulance arrived, but he died at the scene.

Some of the teenagers subsequently discussed the incident on social media before their arrest.

"What we did was good," one of the boys said on Snapchat.

The teenagers who faced court today had a charge of murder withdrawn due to their guilty plea to manslaughter.

Court documents stated all were liable for manslaughter on the basis that they agreed to attack Mr Westren as a group in a situation involving dangerous weapons and would have foreseen "an appreciable risk of serious injury".

Ms Doust, who is yet to enter pleas to a charge of murder, will face Wollongong Local Court on Wednesday.

A sixth teenager, a 15-year-old boy, will face the children's court next week.

He is yet to enter a plea to the charge of murder.