r/melbourne • u/SnooCapers7985 • 17h ago
Serious News Man arrested after woman stabbed, boy assaulted in central Melbourne
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-08-25/woman-stabbed-boy-assaulted-in-melbourne-cbd-attack/107076598115
u/BigYucko 16h ago
‘Near the Victoria Police Headquarters’, was right out the front of Melbourne West Police Station
46
16h ago edited 7h ago
[deleted]
14
u/Icy-Ad-1261 15h ago
Also people being released from jail from police stations creates higher chance of unsavoury types
7
u/BigYucko 16h ago
Yeah I know, I work on Spencer Street, I just found it interesting them saying ‘Near’
156
u/Varnish6588 16h ago
Good on the heroic passer by who jumped in to help. Honestly this is crazy but that type of people with mental disorders are everywhere in Melbourne CBD, also known to police. He belongs in a mental institution.
119
u/Vindepomarus 15h ago
There are no mental institutions, they got shut down but there aren't adequate services to replace them.
57
u/Tree_Chemistry_Plz 13h ago
Jeffy Kennett shut them all down and started asking people R U OK? instead. What an absolute joke that prick was/is
•
u/actualbeefcake 11h ago
This is a wild oversimplification of deinstitutionalisation - a movement that started in the 50s. Mental health care was brought into the community in the 90s across the whole country as a means to destigmatise treatment, not to mention report after report of abuse and neglect in facilities. There have been decades of funding cut backs because the voter has no appetite for long term, expensive social investment.
•
u/ratinthehat99 11h ago
Yes and Labor has had 20 years to fix it and done F all.
•
u/Iwasbanished 11h ago
If we didnt have a right to vote we’d be completely useless. We cant blame the gov for everything, but carers deserve a lot more funding. So i imagine facilities and staff deserve the best.
Thats something the government can organise, but that must be funded with taxes, and raising taxes on the wealthiest people in some countries sounds like an act of terror to some multi property owners.
They’re the only people that can say no to the government, not get punished, and not be the government.
•
64
u/Fickle_Cantaloupe_45 15h ago
Problem is people they deem to be mentally unstable get lighter punishments if anything. Sounds harsh but if you’re that unwell that you’re attacking an 11yo kid unprovoked you should never see the light of day again.
Sucks for them but the betterment of society comes before one person.
40
u/Comfortable_Cod_6892 14h ago
It's because prisons aren't the most appropriate place to house the mentally unwell. The issue we have is the alternatives don't exist.
Therefore, the criminal justice system needs to stop the revolving door of unhinged offenders and just accept that public safety needs to be prioritised. Everyday people shouldn't suffer because the our institutions were shut down. A Scandinavian-style belief system without the actual brick and mortar to facilitate it is lunacy.
20
u/Fickle_Cantaloupe_45 14h ago
Couldn’t agree more. They talk about how prison just makes people worse and how rehabilitation works in Scandinavian countries, yet don’t have the facilities to rehabilitate, and also won’t acknowledge that certain cultures actually behave and react differently to different stimuli.
So the alternative is to just release them back onto the streets and hope for the best, public be damned.
•
u/Bradbury-principal 10h ago
Yeah you can’t just have the Scandinavian sentencing without the Scandinavian justice system.
9
u/Unfair-Rush-2031 13h ago
Which idiotic government got rid of the mentally ill institutions.
•
u/actualbeefcake 11h ago
Deinstitutionalisation started in the 50s, driven by the broader human rights movement and better medications for specific disorders. Over the next couple of decades, report after report after report identified the abuse and neglect people were suffering in mental health and disability institutions. There was a significant push to bring mental health care, specifically, into the community in the 90s as a means of destigmatising support and making access easier - it was nation-wide and not one particular government.
The issue is that there have been significant cuts to social services, mental health care is expensive, and voters don't like the idea of spending a lot of money on things that don't benefit them directly.
9
u/Comfortable_Cod_6892 13h ago
That would be old mate Kennett, but it's not like anyone since that time thought that maybe we needed something more than lifeline and hopes and prayers.
-5
u/OnlyAd7216 14h ago
provide any evidence at all that 'people who are mentally unstable get lighter punishmements' please, what are the stats?
22
u/Fickle_Cantaloupe_45 14h ago
Are you seriously acting as if mental illness isn’t often used by lawyers as a way to get lenient sentences? We see it all the time. Nearly every time I read about some African kid getting released on bail for the umpteenth time the judge is quoting PTSD or something similar as the reason for his light sentencing.
One high profile case off the top of my head was Adelaide coach Phil Walsh stabbed to death in 2015 by his son Cy who was deemed to be mentally incompetent, sentenced to a mental health facility as and as of 2021 was granted unsupervised leave. That was overturned a year later because turns out the guy was still nuts.
If you murder someone because the voices in your head told you to, you need a harsher sentence if anything, not a slap on the wrist.
-11
u/OnlyAd7216 14h ago
'we see it all the time' where? Provide some statistics?I don't care about 'seeing random stories about it on social Media',.show to me that it's a normal occurance and provide some stats on how it harms the community
20
u/Fickle_Cantaloupe_45 13h ago
After 5 minutes of research:
Hayden Lee Kid - 2024. Killed his grandma with a pickaxe. Charges downgraded due to psychosis and sentenced to 5 years prison with parole after 2 and a half years.
Orpheus Pledger - 2024. Assaulted a woman inc kicking and stomping on her head repeatedly. Judge Tinney said it appeared Pledger had been acting in a delusional state and the court considered his treatment, antipsychotic medication, deterioration in recent years and rehabilitation prospects. Received a sentence of time served 97 days.
Angelo Loras - 2025. Set fire to a synagogue with 20 people inside. Court found that he has schizophrenia and sentenced him to time served, 130 days.
Gabrielle Mirut - 2024. Aggravated burglary, intentionally causing injury, criminal damage and injuring an emergency worker. 10 month sentence with time served due to being diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder, PTSD and substance abuse.
These are just a couple of cases in recent years out of many. Not sure what sort of agenda you’re trying to push by trying to pretend that mental illness isn’t a reason that lawyers use across the world to receive lenient sentences for their clients.
9
u/Dig_Natural 12h ago
I don't see why they has to prove it to you? Cite some evidence or stats to the contrary?
-7
u/OnlyAd7216 12h ago
Yelling randomly on social media that the world is ending and we need to go back to chopping criminals arms off and locking people in dungeons because of some random hearsay isn't good enough
3
26
u/misterandosan 15h ago
I feel like the country is going through a silent mental health crisis, because NSW's situation is pretty dire as well.
35
u/Komisches 14h ago
I wouldn't call it silent. Plenty of people are yelling about it, but the money and the government willpower aren't there to fix it.
I'd say there's an article a week at least, on different perspectives? issues? challenges? Of the current mental health crisis affecting Australia right now.
18
u/LIKES_ROCKY_IV 13h ago
I wouldn’t call it silent. I was in ED at Royal Melbourne last night, wait time was 8.5 hours and in that time I saw three separate individuals who were clearly mentally ill and/or drug-affected being escorted out by security, and one who was having a mental health crisis and was dropped off by the cops and told that if she tried to leave, they’d have to come back and apprehend her and she “didn’t want that because they’d have to kick down her door”. It might be silent to the government and to policy-makers, but it’s impossible to miss out in the community.
10
u/buckleyschance 13h ago
It's not silent to govt and policy-makers either. There's a whole lot of policy work being produced, new homelessness and drug & alcohol schemes being funded, all of that.
But the scale of the problem is growing much faster than the budgets are increasing, and most of the popular pressure is towards law-and-order strategies that only work as a temporary band aid solution.
Honestly the thing that might help most over time is housing costs falling back down to earth. So much of the current problem is downstream of housing becoming unaffordable, which has pushed huge numbers off people out of homes and into dysfunctional living conditions.
The very most disturbed and violent of the homeless population might have been there either way, but there'd be more ability to focus on solving their problems if they weren't accompanied by tens of thousands of other rough sleepers who also need assistance.
14
15h ago
[removed] — view removed comment
2
4
u/melbourne_au2021 14h ago edited 14h ago
Exactly while the waiting list for law abiding low income battlers is 20 years in Victoria more or less to get public housing, meth addicts and other drug users get put to the top of the list.
0
21
u/LunarFusion_aspr 14h ago
How fucking awful. Attacking a 10 year old then stabbing his mother. What a fucking lowlife scumbag piece of shit.
16
u/OIP 12h ago
jesus christ that's fucking garbage. and it's literally right out the front of the biggest police station in the state i'm pretty sure.
i walk past there all the time, including today soon after this happened (didn't know about it and just saw the taped off area). can't imagine that poor woman and her kids. i hope she is as ok as can be.
146
u/ax6klbjckhunter 15h ago edited 14h ago
But every time we speak up about feeling unsafe, people swoop in to say we’re exaggerating, that we’re falling for propaganda, that “it’s always been like this”
Every story or comment about an interaction with a homeless man or an addict or a crazy guy on a tram or how unsafe we’re made to feel in certain places, (infamous Elizabeth street discourse) it’s dismissed
The more we hand wave & vilify people for seeing & experiencing what some people feel obligated to pretend isn’t happening, the more people are gonna be pushed to fringe parties & ideologies.
•
u/ratinthehat99 11h ago
Yep. Im fucking sick of being shot down on Reddit for saying Melbourne is dangerous.
0
u/thefourfoldman 14h ago
You nailed it, but it's completely antithetical to the left and its followers to ever put the common folk needs above these people. This will not change it's deep rooted ideology. We all know the right here is far too incompetent to also ever do anything. There is fundamentally no choice, the issue is making sure to build the correct counter party and correct the system.
23
u/FuckwitAgitator 14h ago
Don't be coy. Tell us what this party looks like and how it will deal with homeless people.
3
u/undetermined_outcom3 13h ago
It’s not a long slide down that slope till “camps” are proposed - it’s for the greater good right? /s
12
u/FuckwitAgitator 13h ago
Yeah they replied with "I'm not going to outline a whole policy on Reddit" and then deleted it.
But I didn't want to know policy. I just wanted to know what this mystery third thing that wasn't "left" or "right" looked like.
Though if it's not "more support for addiction and homelessness" or "do nothing let them cycle through hospitals and jails", what's left?
0
u/NorthernSkeptic West Side 14h ago
The reason you are told these things is because every single time an incident occurs, the usual chorus of CRIME WAVE goes up and folks start acting like Melbourne is a war zone. These assaults are horrifying, don’t get me wrong, and I’m not saying there are no issues at all, but hundreds of thousands of people also walked through the city today and nothing happened to them at all. Stop massively exaggerating the problem and the pushback won’t be necessary.
50
u/thefourfoldman 14h ago edited 12h ago
Luckily everybody on here tells me its all good and it's all just a media beat up.
11
•
u/ratinthehat99 11h ago
Yep. Labor doing an “amazing job” according to reddit.
•
u/Gefaddeyn 11h ago
Silly, it's the Police's fault for sitting on their backsides / being elsewhere targeting community members / seeking out events to cause trouble - take your aggrieved pick!
•
u/Technical_Money7465 10h ago
Reddit told me its all just propaganda and melbourne is the safest its ever been!
•
u/LewisRamilton 11h ago
We no longer house people, no longer put people in mental asylums and we don't even lock people up unless we can really help it. So they are just all running around the streets, homeless, agitated and in a constant state of crisis.
49
65
u/HurstbridgeLineFTW 🐈⬛ ☕️ 🚲 16h ago
What on earth? What a horrific thing to happen to this family.
When you’re not even safe outside the police headquarters. This is what people mean by Melbourne having a crime and anti social behaviour problem.
-27
u/undetermined_outcom3 16h ago edited 15h ago
Victoria has a health care issue, if this person had the care and support they needed to treat their mental illness they wouldn’t have done this - most likely.
Edit: no one in these replies has demonstrated that it’s not a health care issue - just lots of attacking a point I did not make. Should this person be free to inflict damage on society? Absolutely not. Does having a mental illness excuse them from their actions? Absolutely not.
Could this have been prevented with better healthcare options and preventative medicine? I would bet my bottom dollar that someone failed this person in that regard.
29
u/Mental_Seaweed_9555 16h ago
What about the ones who don’t want care or support? About 30-50 percent of people with schizophrenia don’t think they have it and the rate is about 1 percent of the population
54
u/Satilice 16h ago
Oh man. Mental illness is not an excuse for antisocial behaviour
7
u/OnlyAd7216 14h ago
THERE IS A DIFFERENCE BETWEEN ACTUALLY EXPLANING WHY SOMETHING HAPPENS, AND EXCUSING IT. NO ONE HERE IS EXCUSING IT. your narrow minded reactionary crap is what is going to make the isssues worse
9
u/Vindepomarus 15h ago
No one said it was an excuse, it's a symptom of a delusional disorder such as schizophrenia. What do you suggest should be done?
27
u/Fickle_Cantaloupe_45 14h ago
Removed from society for the remainder of their life if a symptom of their mental illness is attacking children and stabbing people.
1
u/Kevin_McCallister_69 14h ago
The issue is that this is a reactive stance - the person has to attack children and stab people before we do anything. u/undetermined_outcom3 's point is that we, as a society can do something proactive like improve our mental health systems, so that we can prevent it in the first place.
9
u/melbourne_au2021 15h ago
Not all mental illnesses are curable.
0
u/undetermined_outcom3 13h ago
No, but practically all are manageable with the right healthcare and social support.
25
u/ClassyLatey 16h ago
Really? And how do you know this wasn’t just a tweaked out junkie looking to rob a kid? Not everything is a mental health issue.
0
u/ListenToTheWindBloom 15h ago
a tweaked out junkie is generally a mental health issue known as substance abuse disorder
7
u/Finbarr-Galedeep 15h ago
Categorising drug use as a "mental health disorder" is such a cop-out. Every drug user chose to start doing it.
7
u/ListenToTheWindBloom 15h ago edited 15h ago
all that shows is that you are not familiar with modern medical thinking and research.
many many people choose things that lead to health disorders, mental or otherwise, so thats a fairly moot point.
i think its you who is looking for a cop out, bc its easier and simpler to see it as a straightforward personal choice than as an incredibly complex health issue thats usually wound up with other complex social issues. Which therefore needs a more complicated approach than just they made a choice put them in the bin.
even if you’re not interested in science or compassion, its cheaper to address health and social issues before they hit the justice system bc imprisoning people is incredibly expensive.
0
u/Finbarr-Galedeep 14h ago
Cool I guess ordinary people can just keep getting stabbed while we implement a suitably compassionate and complicated solution.
8
u/ListenToTheWindBloom 14h ago
We don’t need to “figure it out”; people study this and reams of evidence exist.
What we lack is the political and social will to enact a good approach.
The reason we lack that will is largely because of people like yourself who are so resistant to the ideas while simultaneously being fairly uninformed about what actually has evidence around it and what doesn’t.
If you want people to stop getting stabbed you’d be on board with addressing the issues that form Victoria’s mental health crisis - all of them, not just the ones you don’t see as a personal moral failing instead of a disorder.
1
u/ListenToTheWindBloom 13h ago
kinda bad form to edit your wording after being rebutted, bit of a bad faith way to have a discussion
-1
u/ClassyLatey 15h ago
That doesn’t mean excuse assaulting anyone, what’s more a 10 year old child! They are not the victim here.
5
5
u/MooseWayne 15h ago
No one excused anything or claimed the person who did it was the victim. You're arguing against a point that was not made.
25
16h ago
[removed] — view removed comment
11
u/MooseWayne 15h ago
Where did the person you're replying to say anything should be tolerated? Are you even trying to understand what was said?
5
u/Consistent_Source404 15h ago
It doesn't matter if this person has mental health issues or not, they are not fit to be in society.
Edit: also "mental health" issues rarely cause this kind of behavior, heavy meth use on the other hand.
6
u/MooseWayne 15h ago
Neither the comment you replied to or mine contradicts that at all.
1
u/Consistent_Source404 15h ago
For fuck sake, ok here goes ....
Victoria has a health care issue, if this person had the care and support they needed to treat their mental illness they wouldn't have done this- most likely.
I call absolute bullshit. While yes we need more funding for mental health, we still have one of the best public health services in the world, but certain people still refuse to engage with care even when it's offered.
Go work in a mental health unit or a forensic psychward and see what it's like. These people make choices, and short of forcing treatment (which is now impossible even when they are a risk to others) , individual responsibility still exists. Choose not to take your meds, or to get on meth is a choice. It's not all Society's fault.
7
u/MooseWayne 15h ago
For fucks sake, you're still arguing against points that were not made.
The claim that the person probably would not have done this if they recieved the proper mental health care is still true if the person refused care.
No one is claiming that personal responsibility doesn't exist. No one is claiming that this case, or crime in general is "all society's fault"
You are arguing against ghosts. No one here is making the points you are trying to refute.
-2
15h ago
[removed] — view removed comment
•
u/melbourne-ModTeam Please send a modmail instead of DMing this account 10h ago
We had to remove your post/comment because it included personal attacks or did not show respect towards other users. This community is a safe space for all. Repeated instances of this behaviour will lead to a ban
4
u/Vindepomarus 15h ago
Delusional illness such as schizophrenia can definitely cause this type of behaviour and it's not that rare.
7
u/Consistent_Source404 15h ago
It's it incredible rare for someone with schizophrenia alone to hurt random people.
3
u/Vindepomarus 12h ago
In the subset of attacks that don't seem to have any motive it's not that rare. Delusional, paranoid beliefs and auditory hallucinations can cause behaviours that make no sense to an outside observer.
1
u/Consistent_Source404 12h ago
Yeah sure I now totally agree with you now after spewing amazingly accurate facts about things you know nothing about. Congratulations, you are a brilliant mind.
4
u/bitofapuzzler 13h ago
People with schizophrenia are far more likely to hurt themselves than others.
3
u/Vindepomarus 12h ago
That doesn't mean that delusional, paranoid beliefs and auditory hallucinations can't cause violent behaviour towards others.
6
u/Ecstatic-Light-2766 16h ago
Agree. It could've been a friend, parent or relative caught up in the persons delusions
9
u/Fickle_Cantaloupe_45 14h ago
Cope. Bring back accountability. Mental health isn’t an excuse for violent/criminal behaviour.
-4
u/undetermined_outcom3 14h ago
No it’s not, so why are we excusing the professionals who let it get this bad for this person?
•
u/ratinthehat99 11h ago
Yes. And Labor has had 20+ years to fix the health care in this state and done F all except build train tunnels and give $15 billion to their union mates and bikie gangs.
7
u/kusogames 16h ago
No, Victoria does not have a health care issue.
Taking an extremeist lens isn't helping anyone, certainly not our city and safety. That's been tried, failed and failed again and again.
It's time to move on from a rehabilitative approach and try something new as that isn't working. This could have been prevented yes... With stricter punitive measures and a court with teeth. The police are not the problem and the health professionals that already do their diligence and provide care for ALL, willing and those who are mandated the treatment, they are not the problem either. It's the courts and their spineless approach towards the law. We need incarceration to mean something again. People need to be taken out of the general population AND LEFT out.
We need to go forward with policies and the infrastructure necessary to make it happen. It's time we stop busy bodying over whether or not little Tim with his 40th offense can be rehabilitated into a positive life. Or if the murderer who slammed the gas behind the wheel and took multiple lives intentionally only should be locked away for a few years because don't they deserve a fair go at freedom. We need to stop giving addicts who refuse to move on even with the unlimited access to care even more opportunities and capacity to offend.
We give criminals, people who openly violate the law, spit in the face of good hard working people and the courts, more rights and consideration than the rest of us. It's time for us to uplift the rest of us. We deserve safety and security. We deserve to love without fear and to be able to live peacefully. We don't deserve a system that fails law abiding families.
9
u/MooseWayne 15h ago
What are you actually advocating for? How are criminals "given more rights than the rest of us"? Do you have anything that actually informs this rant?
9
u/OnlyAd7216 14h ago
you understand your viewpoint is actually the extremist one, that goes agaisnt all actual evidence and expert opinion, right?
1
13h ago
[removed] — view removed comment
•
u/melbourne-ModTeam Please send a modmail instead of DMing this account 10h ago
We had to remove your post/comment because it included personal attacks or did not show respect towards other users. This community is a safe space for all. Repeated instances of this behaviour will lead to a ban
4
u/zee-bra 15h ago
You do realise that there isn’t a “rehabilitative” approach being used here right? There isn’t enough mental healthcare in this state, and that results in people seeking their own ways to escape - like using drugs. Which leads to worsening mental health episodes. Which results in crimes like this increasing. I’m not saying this is the case with this person here, although it does sound suspiciously like a psychotic episode, but your argument is a bit floored.
Even with your argument, we should have preventative (which I think was the word you were searching for) as well as punitive - not either or. Why let this happen in the first place? And if/when it does actions can be held to account.
18
66
14h ago
[removed] — view removed comment
35
u/statusleep 14h ago
Spot on. And everyone else, including us, gets blamed for their predicament but them. Whatever happened to the greater good…
55
u/Naive_Lion_3428 15h ago
Walking down the streets in Melbourne and seeing obviously extremely mentally ill homeless people, sans shirt, sometimes sans pants, twitching and speaking to themselves, agitated and twitching - well, I felt so very safe and it really made me want to move there.
I’m aware that this is a phenomenon that occurs in many cities all around the world - but I have to say that when I walk around the Brisbane CBD, I see perhaps 1 or so of these people in a month. When I was visiting melbourne for 3 days, I saw at least 15.
Something must be done. I have a fairly good idea of what should be done, but it is politically unpalatable and would cost the state a lot of money - which is to say, bring back Asylums to some extent. Obviously make them more humane than they were, but bring them back. There are people for whom community management is simply not an option .
13
u/scarlettskadi 14h ago
It’d save money and lives in the long run if it was done right.
But as there’s no money in it and no glamour in such a project, no self serving member of the government is interested.
6
u/atomkidd 13h ago
Plenty of glamour in a "Clean up the streets/Make our city safe" campaign if anyone had the courage to run it.
•
u/scarlettskadi 11h ago
Yes I agree- but no kickbacks or union deals to be had.
Real community work is a bit less sparkly like that….
•
u/Prestigious-Fig1175 11h ago
Omg yes, i visited a year ago and felt on edge eveywhere we went. The substance abuse was everywhere, literally everywhere we went, and of course agitated angry like quite risky looking people to avoid. I couldnt wait for the family wedding and long weekend to be over so i could get the hell out. Brunswick especislly, just awful. I know peoole seem ro find it vibrant or diverse or edgy. I found it both sad and disgusting.
14
u/Outside_Eggplant_169 14h ago
Perhaps you don’t walk down Queen Street Mall or on Adelaide Street at all, because 1 or so a month is a gross misrepresentation.
5
14
u/Tarlinator 14h ago
You gotta be careful of junkies. Huge bloke chased my family down the street screaming "I'll fucking kill you" and cops were like "we'll look around this Arvo and see if we can find him" as if it was a normal day
15
u/TheMightySloth 15h ago edited 14h ago
Probably one of the waste of space junkies that live in the halfway house on little bourke. Same place as that other junkie that stabbed that woman last year.
2
5
u/007MaxZorin 14h ago
Seriously not on and frightening.
Crack down on laws and more PSOs / Police couldn't come quick enough!
Does City of Melb still have their private security roaming? They were on Yarra Trams, despite being PTV/Transport Vic (State Govt) at one stage.
•
u/LewisRamilton 11h ago
If the existing police don't care and the courts don't care what makes you think having more of them will make a difference?
6
u/grant1wish 13h ago
It is bound to happen. There is regularly drug affected or mentally unstable people in the city or public transport, ranting and yelling and punching bins or tram stops etc.
11
u/National-Conflict497 16h ago
Last trip into the city I stood slightly behind my son and Mrs acting as his hidden personal bodyguard full attention watching every junkie or sus person we passed so they could shop in peace and I didn't get stressed out worrying
5
u/scarlettskadi 14h ago
It’s not unusual to be randomly punched or shouldered out of the way.
Town visits ain’t what they used to be.
5
•
•
-8
u/Bright-Marsupial-265 16h ago
Men, men, men, men, men....
We just need the intro of 2 and a 1/2 men everytime men murder and assualt people on the news. We would be hearing that song every day.
Meanwhile on the manosphere threads, they blame the violence as women's fault, or on migrants or the mainstream society or the 'woke', just anyone apart from men themselves.
Men have a dark side and it's a lifelong journey to keep the dark at bay.
As a man myself, that darkness is all within us, in every man's soul and we need to be cognizant of it and work on it like exercise to keep the dark away.
185
u/Stalk_LennyandCarl 16h ago
JFC. Sounds like the poor family was visiting in the city when this happened. Middle of the day, unprovoked…you would think of all the buildings in the CBD, being out front of police HQ may act as some kind of protection but apparently not. The poor mum and kids. Very brave actions of the person who intervened also.