Vanessa Roberts: Woman led bashing of teen at South Morang train station

A grown woman encouraged a gang of her mates to bash up a teenage girl at the South Morang train station.

A grown woman took part in the brutal, premeditated bashing of a teenage girl at the South Morang train station, sparked by a suspicion the teen spreading rumours about her.

Vanessa Roberts, 43, of Mill Park, is now serving a 12 month community corrections order after earlier this month pleading guilty to affray, assault, and intentionally causing injury.

Roberts’s case dragged through the Magistrates Court for years until she was earlier this month sentenced for her leading role in the after-school scrag fight.

The Heidelberg Magistrates Court heard Roberts, then 40, was hanging out with a group of teenagers at the station in February 2019 when the group arranged to meet their victim at the nearby Plenty Valley Westfields.

Roberts loosely knew the victim, and the victim went to the shops thinking she was friends with her would-be attackers.

Vanessa Roberts, 43, of Mill Park, orchestrated a brutal reprisal attack on a teenage girl at South Morang train station. Picture: Creative Commons

A teenage girl was lured to Plenty Valley Westfield by "friends" before being set upon in a brutal bashing orchestrated by 43-year-old Mill Park woman Vanessa Roberts. Picture: TripAdvisor

According to court documents released late on Tuesday, Roberts, her co-offenders and the victim-to-be briefly hung out around the shopping centre, where Roberts “spoke to the co-accuseds and encouraged them to assault the victim in retribution … believing the victim to be spreading rumours about (her)”.

Roberts and her co-offenders coaxed the victim into a tunnel at the railway station, where Roberts began talking to the victim face-to-face, in an apparent bid to distract her.

A co-offender, who cannot be identified for legal reasons, then snuck up on the victim from behind, grabbed her hair and dragged her to the ground “using such force that she slammed her back into the ground”.

Roberts and the co-offender then repeatedly kicked and punched their helpless victim in the face.

The victim was spared even more serious injuries when one of the attackers tried to kick her with a “full swing” of her leg, but missed.

The court heard Roberts was now “clearly remorseful” for her role in the bashing, and understood she should have intervened to stop the dispute among her teenage associates, rather than encouraging them to take part in the violent bashing.

For legal reasons, many details of the attack cannot be published.

The court heard both the victim and her family suffered emotionally as a result of the unprovoked attack.

Roberts will remain on a community corrections order until September 2022.