Magistrate hits out at youth knife crime after machete attack at Central Square shopping centre Altona Meadows

A 14-year-old boy nearly lopped a man’s hand off with a machete in a shopping centre mugging, prompting a children’s court magistrate to issue a rebuke of knife crime.

A 14-year-old boy nearly lopped a man’s hand off with a machete during a brutal, unprovoked mugging at Central Square shopping centre in Altona Meadows on Saturday night, prompting a Children’s Court magistrate to issue an unprecedented rebuke of youth knife crime.

The teen, who cannot be identified, who is also a suspect in a similar attack in June, faced a Children’s Court on Tuesday where a magistrate said the government and the community were fed up with knife crime.

Magistrate Shiva Pillai said: “This is exactly what the government has asked to stop. And what happens? It happens again. How do I have any comfort that a bladed weapon is not to be produced again?”

The teen’s legal aid lawyer said he had no prior criminal history, who was shown security camera footage of the brutal attack on the 33-year-old stranger, said: “Doesn’t have a history? I’ll tell you what, that knife came out with experience”.

Mr Pillai added: “The government has a very clear position as to knife crime, and if people don’t understand it they are not reading the papers or not understanding what politics is.”

The victim has no feeling in his left hand, which was left dangling off after being hacked, and also has a fractured spine.

The man was attacked at Altona Meadows Shopping Centre.

He told police his partner was sleeping with him at hospital, as they are both too afraid to return to the western suburbs.

The victim was attacked by five teens, all aged 14 and 15, one of whom is yet to be identified, despite telling them “I don’t want any trouble”.

He had been to the shops to buy a packet of cigarettes and was talking to a friend on the phone when he was set upon.

When two passers-by found him and rang an ambulance, paramedics feared he would die because he had lost so much blood.

He is now in a stable condition, but will require further surgeries on his spine and arm, and faces years of rehabilitation.

The teen’s grandmother, fighting back tears, said her grandson was “quiet and unassuming”, and had never been violent at home or school.

When asked if she thought she knew what he was doing when out with his friends, she said: “I thought I did, I thought I did”.

She said she would be “as strict as possible” with him if he was granted bail, and would restrict him to conditions close to house arrest.

“I would not let him out at all, I would not have him see any of these people (co-accused) again,” she said.

A detective told the court the teen’s friends were suspects in three violent, random attacks on men in the western suburbs.

The teen is due to return to court on Friday, when police expect to have obtained security camera footage of the boy wandering the shopping centre before the attack, before he allegedly obscured his face with a mask.

Mr Pillai remanded him to Parkville Youth Justice precinct until then.

Originally published as Magistrate hits out at youth knife crime after machete attack at Central Square shopping centre Altona Meadows