Three Brisbane men have pleaded guilty to the manslaughter of 19-year-old Cian English, who plunged to his death from a Gold Coast balcony trying to escape them.
Lachlan Paul Soper-Lagas, 21, Hayden Paul Kratzmann, 23, and Jason Ryan Knowles, 25, were charged with the 19-year-old’s murder. They pleaded not guilty to murder, but pleaded guilty to the lesser charge of manslaughter at Brisbane Supreme Court on Thursday.
The trio also pleaded guilty to torturing and robbing English and his friend on the night he died at a Surfers Paradise hotel in May 2020.
English’s older brother, Dylan English, told the court that on the night of the teenager’s death, he woke up and “knew something was wrong, but didn’t know what”, per ABC News.
Upon learning that his brother was dead, he “just fell to the ground and screamed”.
Their mother, Siobhan, told the court that watching her son “gasping and crying for his brother will forever haunt [her]”.
The court heard that the 27-minute attack, which two other juvenile alleged offenders had filmed, occurred after English and his friend were wrongly accused of stealing drugs.
Kratzmann, Knowles and Soper-Lagas had also checked into the same hotel and were staying in the apartment directly above English’s.
After the two friend groups had begun chatting from their respective balconies, Kratzmann invited the English and his friend to party with them in his fourth-floor apartment, where he offered them prescription and non-prescription drugs.
Crown prosecutor Caroline Marco said the group was “amicable” until the drugs went missing, which prompted Kratzmann to accuse the pair of stealing them. The court heard that “an associate of Kratzmann” had taken the drugs without his knowledge.
Marco said English and his friend were beaten over the next 27 minutes before English was stabbed in his left elbow, according to an autopsy.
It was then that he made a break for the balcony.
“Your honour it was most reasonably likely that Mr English was trying to climb down to the floor below, which is where his unit was located, when he fell,” Marco said.
“[The defendants] each knew that Mr English was on the ground, critically injured from the fall.
“The defendants, however, responded, self-interestedly, by packing their belongings and leaving the unit with two female defendants 16 minutes later.”
Kratzmann, later called triple zero and alleged he was on a late-night bike ride when he had seen a person lying on the ground outside an apartment.
Marco said two of the accused posted photos wearing the alleged victims’ clothing “like it was an accomplishment” after English’s fall, before taking a train to Brisbane.
“At the train station, Mr Kratzmann drew a crude piece of graffiti about the incident involving the deceased on a pole, which in my submission was another callous act to mark his lack of remorse for what has occurred,” Marco told the court.
The defence lawyer for Kratzmann said his client was remorseful. He also argued his young age and substance abuse issues should be considered in sentencing, along with his “timely plea”.
The remaining defence submissions are expected on Friday, before the trio is sentenced.
Two teenagers, who were juveniles at the time of the incident and cannot be named, are yet to be sentenced.
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