News Service from House Harris

NSW: Teen worked frantically to save mate's life: court

SYDNEY, Jan 5 AAP - The police case against a teenager who allegedly shot his best mate and then tried frantically to save him did not appear to stack up to a murder charge, a Sydney magistrate said on Monday.

Details of 14-year-old Josef Cruickshank's shooting death emerged on Monday, as Magistrate Paul Mulroney told the accused that the murder charge against him did not appear to represent what allegedly took place.

The accused appeared in Campbelltown Children's Court with his family and Josef's mother, Rosemary Cruickshank, who has asked publicly for the murder charge to be dropped.

Josef and his mate, also 14, had been alone at the accused's family home in Orangeville, in Sydney's south-west, on the night of the shooting on Saturday, December 6, last year, court documents show.

They reveal a 48-year-old man knocked on the front door seeking help shortly before the shooting.

The man's car had broken down in front of the house about 10pm (AEDT), and Josef lent the man his mobile phone so that he could ring his wife.

A few minutes after the man returned to his car, he heard a loud bang and then one of the boys yelling: "I've just shot my mate. I've just shot my mate. Can you help me?"

The man raced through the front door and up a flight of stairs to find Josef lying on the floor in a pool of blood.

He was unconscious and had injuries to his face and to the back of his head, the court documents state.

The accused had already called triple-zero and was speaking to a woman who instructed the pair how to perform CPR.

They tried for 20 minutes to revive Josef, until police and ambulance arrived, but he died at the scene.

"I turned around and it just went off, and I shot him in the face," the accused initially told police.

He told officers the weapon, a single-barrel, pump-action shotgun, belonged to his father and had been left in an unlocked wardrobe the day before.

The accused has subsequently declined to be interviewed by police, court documents say.

The teenager, dressed in a black suit, was present in court on Monday.

"It would seem to me there is not a strong prosecution case that is available to me in regards to the charge of murder," Mr Mulroney told the court.

The boy's legal counsel applied for variations to his bail conditions, which the magistrate granted.

The teenager must report to Camden police station on Mondays and Thursdays, is under curfew from 9pm to 6am, and must remain at his family's home during those times.

During daylight hours he must be in the presence of his mother, father or grandfather.

Mr Mulroney adjourned the case until March 2.

The boy's father has been charged with four firearms offences and is on conditional bail to appear in Camden Local Court on January 21.