Albert Thorn, the self-appointed vigilante who orchestrated the brutal to***re and execution of an innocent man he wrongly accused of child ab*se is now pleading with the courts to let him go.
The 60-year-old, once the proud leader of a gang of so-called “p**dophile hunters,” is appealing his conviction and life sentence for the m*rder of Bradley Lyons—a father of eight who was lured to his demise by his own wife, falsely accused, and subjected to unimaginable pain over a lie.
“You took his life away deliberately and heartlessly,” Supreme Court Justice Andrew Tinney told Thorn in 2023, sentencing him to life with a minimum of 32 years.
“It was a premeditated, heartless crime which would shock any fair-minded member of the community.”
Gang leader who fatally punished a falsely accused child ab*ser is now pleading with the courts to be let free
Warning: This article contains graphic descriptions of violence and crime, as well as references to child ab*se.
Now, two years later after his sentence, Thorn is fighting to overturn his conviction not by denying that the crime occurred, but by challenging the evidence against him, particularly a video of his then eight-year-old daughter accusing him of the crime.
But first, let’s revisit what got Thorn and his gang—the self-appointed Australian Freedom Fighters—in jail in the first place.
Bradley Lyons’ final hours in December 2018 were captured on CCTV as he followed his wife, Jana Hooper, into their Lakes Entrance home.
Inside, Thorn and his gang were waiting. Hooper, who had falsely claimed her husband had impregnated her underage daughters, nodded to the intruders, giving them the signal to begin.
What followed was a prolonged and sadistic ordeal that ended in cold-blooded execution.
Lyons was assaulted in his own bedroom with a metal pole, punched with fists wrapped around a cigarette lighter, and had a shotgun barrel shoved into his mouth as he was forced to confess to crimes he never committed.
He was later abducted in the boot of a Toyota Corolla, driven to Thorn’s rural property, and strapped to a massage table in a shed, where his suffering escalated.
Thorn acted on behalf of Jana Hooper, Lyons’ wife, who was addicted to illegal substances, and accused her husband of impregnating their daughters
“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 during the 2022 sentencing of Nicholas Stefani, Thorn’s second-in-command.
According to at least one version of events, one of Lyons’ hands was sawed off in the process. When his tormentors were done, he was also forced to dig his own grave. He was then shot in the knee and the head with a shotgun.
“I’m satisfied you were at the heart of the whole enterprise,” Justice Tinney said to Thorn. “Your influence over others that were much younger than you was critical to proceedings.”
The false accusations came from Lyons’ wife, Jana Hooper, who told Thorn that Lyons had gotten her 16-year-old daughter pregnant and had also inappropriately touched her 14-year-old. She had a history of being addicted to the same illegal substances Thorn’s gang consumed.
Hooper was sentenced to seven and a half years for her role in the crime. She is expected to be eligible for parole after serving just four and a half.
Thorn’s new legal team believes the testimony of his daughter to be inadmissible, as she had no direct knowledge to support her claims
This week, Thorn returned to the Victorian Supreme Court of Appeal, arguing that the testimony of his daughter, considered “the most important evidence” by the prosecution, should never have been admitted at trial.
Two years after the incident, Thorn’s daughter gave a recorded video interview to police in which she claimed her father had confessed to his actions in the Bradley Lyons case.
The court accepted this interview just weeks before Thorn’s trial, and prosecutors leaned heavily on her statement to prove that Thorn had personally pulled the trigger despite the lack of forensic evidence directly linking him to the fatal shot.
Her statement became central to the case, transforming what had been to that point a circumstantial prosecution into one that, in the jury’s eyes, contained a direct confession.
Thorn’s new legal team, however, argues that the evidence was inadmissible. His barrister, Megan Tittensor SC, told the Court of Appeal that what Thorn’s daughter said was not something she had direct knowledge of.
They argued she was only repeating what her father had allegedly told her in private, and therefore her testimony should never have been used as proof of guilt.
The appeal also argues that Thorn should have been tried separately from his co-accused. If successful, Thorn could be granted a retrial and face a new jury.
For the Lyons’ family, however, a retrial would be the ultimate insult.
“The images of what was done to him invade my sleep as vividly as if I had witnessed it myself,” his mother said during sentencing, reminding everyone of the enduring trauma the crime left behind.
“This is the real face of vigilantism.” Thorn’s plea reminded netizens of the cruelty of the crime
