Convictions quashed for Queensland boy who couldn’t understand charges and didn’t enter pleas

When asked to plead, teenager with mental age of an eight-year-old responded yeah', judge says as he sets aside Kuranda magistrate's rulings

A 14-year-old north Queensland boy with a severe intellectual disability was wrongly convicted and sentenced to nine months' detention by a magistrate who recorded guilty pleas to a series of charges, despite the child being incapable of instructing his lawyers and not verbalising a plea in court.

The boy - who has an IQ of 54 - spent 136 days in custody in 2023 and was convicted of 19 offences, mostly related to breaking and entering properties.

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