A 17-year-old boy is forced to eat a cigarette butt after being caught on a train, before the humiliating images were posted on Snapchat.
- Teenager was threatened with a knife at a Brisbane train station
- They forced him to eat a cigarette and kiss the offender’s shoe
- Perpetrator Ethan Knox pleaded guilty and remains in custody
A boy was forced to perform degrading acts such as eating a cigarette butt while Ethan Knox and an accomplice filmed him and posted the images on social media.
Told to pick up a discarded cigarette, the 17-year-old was forced to eat it while Ethan Knox and his accomplice filmed it with the teen’s own phone.
“Swallow it up,” they can be heard telling the boy in the video later uploaded to social media as they laugh.
It was one of several demeaning acts the 17-year-old was forced to commit after being threatened with a knife on a Brisbane train.
Images uploaded to Snapchat were shown in Brisbane District Court of the teenager eating the butt of the ‘dumper’ cigarette, removing his pants and then kissing a shoe worn by one of the offenders.
A 17-year-old boy was threatened with a knife and forced to perform a series of degrading acts including eating a cigarette butt (file image)
He was also forced to send a message to his girlfriend, breaking up with her.
Knox and the co-defendant approached the 17-year-old who was sitting alone on a Brisbane train in March 2022, the court heard.
As the train approached a station in south Brisbane, the boy was told: ‘You get off the train and come with us.’
The co-offender then lifted up his shirt to reveal a knife tucked into his pants.
Knox took the boy’s bag that contained a PlayStation 4 game console, two controllers, a wallet and a phone charger.
Crown prosecutor Carla Ahern said that when they got off the train, they took his phone and subjected the boy to humiliating acts while filming, calling him a “fat kid” and a “c***”.
“This is happening on your Snapchat, brother,” the boy is told in one of the videos that the criminals later uploaded.
The teenager was threatened by 19-year-old Ethan Knox and an accomplice at a Brisbane train station. Knox pleaded guilty to company armed robbery, imprisonment and court robbery (file image)
They told the 17-year-old that they would go to his house and “fuck you and beat your father and rape your fucking sister” if he told anyone what happened.
The two co-authors walked back to the station with the boy, then pushed him off a train at one stop after also removing his shoes.
The boy immediately told the train staff and Knox and the co-offender were arrested and detained by police at a stop en route to the Gold Coast.
“The offense is disgusting … the conduct is appalling,” defense attorney David Funch said.
“When you look at these types of offenses, it’s very easy…to get carried away with the depravity of it all and not exercise proper restraint.”
Funch said Knox was homeless between the ages of 13 and 16 and was addicted to methamphetamine.
Knox, 19, pleaded guilty to armed robbery at a company, imprisonment and larceny.
Judge Michael Burnett sentenced him to three years in jail, suspended for four years after serving 364 days.
He also received a three-year probationary period under strict conditions, including a drug test.
The 364 days that Knox spent in custody were declared time served.
He remains in custody for other matters.
