Jason Kerslake stands by the brick wall where passers-by found his brother Ben Gabriel after a night out in Karratha. Source: The Sunday Times
IT was the 100m walk home that changed Ben Gabriel's life for ever.
The 20-year-old should have been walking through his front door minutes after leaving a Karratha nightclub in the early hours of a Saturday morning, but he did not make it.
Instead he was found by a passer-by at first light, unconscious and slumped behind bushes in a carpark. Police had more questions than answers when they arrived at the scene just before 7am.
Had he been in a drunken brawl, assaulted or hit by a car? It was too early to tell.
Two detectives trawled through security footage and ID scanners to identify everyone from the nearby nightclub the night before.
Ben was flown to Royal Perth Hospital in a critical condition, his young life hanging in the balance.
"There was no response, I just kept saying, 'Come on bro, you need to wake up'," his older brother Jason Kerslake said.
Ben Gabriel before suffering devastating injuries during an alleged attack in Karratha.
"And my heart dropped, I couldn't talk and I just broke down in tears."
In the days that passed, Ben showed no signs of recovering and local detectives treated the case as a potential homicide.
They put all their troops on the job and Perth major crime detectives flew to Karratha to help. After two weeks, they had their answers.
They alleged another 20-year-old man confronted Ben outside the Evolution nightclub when it closed about 3am on March 2, before chasing him down the street, kicking him in the chest and "stomping" on his head.
Police said Ben tried to run away but tripped on a verge, before being dragged behind the bushes in the carpark off Warambie Rd.
The man has been remanded in custody to reappear in court in June.
The Sunday Times understands another man found Ben unconscious, filmed him and posted it on Facebook, but didn't call for help.
Ben had only been in WA for a year after moving from NSW to take up a mining job with his brother. Almost eight weeks after the alleged attack, Ben's family is still praying for a miracle.
"His life has changed, it's been ripped from him," Mr Kerslake said.
"It's affected him in the worst way possible he can't talk, he can't feed himself.
"Doctors have given him a three per cent chance of a full recovery.
"There's nothing we can do, it's up to him to come back.
"We can only hope, pray and wish for a miracle."
Ben was flown back to Newcastle last week, where he remains at John Hunter Hospital.
The alleged assault came as a double blow for Ben's siblings, who lost their mother to cancer only a month earlier.
Mr Kerslake said he wanted Ben to move to WA last year because he needed his "best mate".
Now he says he is holding on to the good memories of their time here.
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