Army veteran Chris Sanders’ shock as teen gangster who stabbed him in chest walks from court

An Army veteran who was stabbed in the chest by a child gangster at a Brisbane shopping centre has slammed the courts after the eshay walked free from court.

Chris Sanders outside of the Brisbane Supreme Court. Picture: John Gass

An Army veteran who was stabbed in the chest by a child gangster while at the shops to pick up dinner says he is disappointed as the eshay walked free from court.

Chris Sanders told media outside court that he had a panic attack in court seeing his attacker again in the Childrens Court in Brisbane on Thursday.

“He’s been given nothing really, it’s just disappointing,” Mr Sanders told media of the sentence.

The now 18-year-old who stabbed him was sentence to probation for the “retaliatory ambush” the veteran judge described as chilling.

Judge Ian Dearden sentenced the teen to a three-month conditional release order as he has already served 189 days on remand in juvile detention for this and other crimes.

The child, who swivelled on his chair and stretched during the hearing, pleaded guilty to assault, assault occasioning actual bodily harm and wounding over the stabbing at the Alexandra Hills shopping centre at about 6.10pm on December 12, 2023.

Mr Sanders, 51, was stabbed just centimetres from his heart as he lay on the floor of the shopping centre after he fell over while trying to flee the knife-wielding teen and his mate who were chasing him through the centre.

Asked if he felt closure, Mr Sanders replied: “No, none whatsoever”.

“I’m just appalled with the way the system goes. I did a victim’s impact statement... and even then... the youths don’t get enough justice for what they’re doing,” he said.

“It needs to change and it’s going to have to happen sooner rather than later... so more people don’t get stabbed.”

Chris Sanders outside of the Brisbane Supreme Court. Picture: John Gass

Harrowing footage of the stabbing was played to the court showing Mr Sanders was no threat to the teen who attacked him.

His wife thought he was going to die and asked the police and ambulance officers “is he going to die” as he lay in a pool of his own blood.

Judge Dearden said he was “very distressed” and “chilled” to watch the footage and it “would have scared the living daylights out of anyone in the vicinity”.

Mr Sanders’ whole body was visibly trembling in court as the video was played and held tightly on to his wife’s hand.

In a victim impact statement read to the court by Crown Prosecutor Stephanie Gallagher, Mr Sanders said he hears a voice saying “you are dead old man” in his sleep, and no longer goes shopping alone.

Mr Sanders told the court that victims were serving a life sentence, while criminals were given “nothing”.

Judge Dearden described Mr Sanders’ ongoing trauma as a “profoundly troubling aspect of what” the teen boy had done to him.

Mr Saunders suffered blood and air in his chest cavity and muscle wall and needed a drain inserted in hospital, and no longer has any sensation where he was stabbed.

The knife attack was triggered after the boy hit Mr Saunders car with his hand, and Mr Saunders retaliated by knocking the boy over during a confrontation, so the boy retaliated by chasing him with a knife.

Defence counsel Jessica Horne said her client was homeless at the time and was born addicted to drugs.

No conviction was recorded.