The ruthless leader of a vigilante gang who tortured an innocent father to try to force a confession out of him for crimes he did not commit is now pleading to be set free.
Father-of-eight Bradley ‘BJ’ Lyons, from Lakes Entrance, Victoria, was threatened with a chainsaw and murdered after his meth addict wife falsely accused him of sexually assaulting her daughters.
In December 2023, Lyons’ executioner Albert Thorn, 60, was told he would likely die in jail after he was convicted over the evil ordeal.
Supreme Court of Victoria Justice Andrew Tinney sentenced Thorn to life behind bars, with a 32-year non-parole period.
During the initial trial, the jury heard Mr Lyons was subjected to sustained hideous torture before he died.
Video obtained by the Daily Mail showed his wife Jana Hooper led him to his death after allowing Thorn and his mates to enter their house in Victoria’s east and attack him in December 2018.
Aided by another mate, Alec Harvey, and Thorn’s drug-addled lieutenant, Nicholas Stefani, Mr Lyons had been abducted from his bedroom and taken to Thorn’s property in the boot of a car.
Thorn had been the leader of a vigilante gang with a very specific hatred for paedophiles.
Albert Thorn shot the innocent dad in the knee and the back of the head after he was forced to dig his own grave
Bradley Lyons’ wife Jana Hooper falsely told a meth-addicted group of so-called ‘paedophile hunters’ that her husband had impregnated her daughter
The countdown to execution as Bradley Lyons was abducted, tortured and then killed
Such was Thorn’s loathing for child abusers, he tattooed the gang’s name, Australian Freedom Fighters, across his entire back and posted photographs to Facebook.
In December 2018, Hooper told Thorn she believed Mr Lyons was the father of her 16-year-old daughter’s child and had also made her 14-year-old daughter pregnant.
The court heard it was a straight-out lie.
On Sunday, December 2, 2018, Thorn and his gang raided Mr Lyons’ home in what was supposed to be an idiotic attempt to beat a confession out of him.
Harvey struck him with a metal pole and Smith lashed out while holding a cigarette lighter between his fingers as a knuckle duster.
Stefani forced the barrel of the shotgun into Mr Lyons’ mouth and threatened to kill him if he didn’t confess to the sexual assault allegations.
During Stefani’s sentence in 2022 over his role in the crime, the court heard a chainsaw was among the gang’s torture tools.
‘A chainsaw was held over his head to make him talk, he was punched, hot water from a kettle was poured on him, and Deep Heat was put on his body,’ the court heard.
Jana Hooper (left) was jailed last year for seven-and-a-half years and will be eligible for parole after serving just four-and-a-half.
Thorn had tattooed the gang’s name, Australian Freedom Fighters, across his entire back
CCTV captured from a neighbour’s property showed Mr Lyons followed his wife into their home blissfully unaware of the horrors about to befall him.
He would not be seen alive again after being stuffed into the boot of his soon-to-be killer’s car and driven away.
‘The cat’s in the bag,’ Thorn told the girlfriend of his co-accused Jordan Bottom, who along with Rikki Smith was found not guilty in 2022 of Mr Lyons’ murder.
One version had the men sawing Mr Lyons’ hand off.
When they were done, Mr Lyons was stuffed back into the boot of Thorn’s car.
With towels taped around his head and his hands bound, Thorn, Smith and Bottom drove out into the wilderness along a dirt track near Double Bridges.
There Mr Lyons was made to wait while a shallow grave was dug.
When it was ready, Thorn blasted Mr Lyons in the leg with a .410 shotgun cartridge.
Mr Lyons was strapped to a massage table in a shed at the top of this image where he was tortured
On his knees, another shot was put into the back of his skull.
Bottom would later lead police to the burial site, which had a large log dragged over it. A single shotgun cartridge remained at the scene.
The court heard the men had celebrated their crime, holding a party at Thorn’s property in which Mr Lyons’ own wife and children attended.
Hooper was jailed in 2022 for seven-and-a-half years and will be eligible for parole after serving just four-and-a-half.
Smith, 26, and Bottom, 25, were found not guilty of Mr Lyons’ murder, but the pair were found guilty of his assault and false imprisonment.
In sentencing Thorn, Justice Tinney described the killer as ‘heartless’.
‘Your helpless and vulnerable victim was attacked in his own bedroom, in his own home and was subjected to a drawn-out and shocking series of assaults,’ he said.
‘It was a premeditated, heartless crime which would shock any fair minded member of the community.’
A shotgun casing was found at the burial site of Brad Lyons
Justice Tinney said if Thorn ended up dying in jail, it was his own fault.
On Wednesday, Thorn returned to Victoria’s Supreme Court of Appeal where he resumed his fight to prove his innocence.
The court heard Thorn objected to the use of his then-eight-year old’s daughter’s evidence against him at his trial.
‘What her dad told her about killing the deceased – relied upon for its truth as a confession to murder – was not something he had personal knowledge of and was simply inadmissible,’ his barrister Megan Tittensor, SC, told the court.
‘We say the point was missed by everyone, but is undoubtedly correct in law.’
The court heard Thorn’s daughter had provided a video interview to the court two years after the 2018 murder took place and was crucial in convincing the jury Thorn had been the trigger man, Ms Tittensor claimed.
The court heard the child’s claims were accepted by the court just weeks before Thorn’s trial.
But Thorn’s appeal defence claim the statement – which was called ‘ the most important evidence’ by counsel – should never have been heard by the jury.
CCTV shows Harvey and Smith run from the home, with Smith falling out of the getaway vehicle driven by yet another mate, Jayden Ball.
Ms Tittensor argued Thorn’s barristers at trial would never have allowed the evidence to go before they jury had they known their client’s position.
‘It’s just simply inconceivable that (Thorn’s) counsel would not have taken the point had they been aware of it,’ she said.
‘That that counsel would deliberately agree to the admission of what was otherwise inadmissible evidence… is just simply inconceivable had they known,’ she said.
The court heard the case against Thorn had been circumstantial with no evidence directly linking him to the murder.
It was further argued Thorn should have gone to trial separately to his co-accused.
The Court of Appeal will make its decision at a date to be fixed.
If his appeal is successful, Thorn could be brought back before a new jury where he would be put on trial again alone.
