A teenager waiting for a train in Melbourne has been brutally beaten by a gang of approximately eight African girls.
The shocking assault, which was captured on video and later posted to social media, took place at Southern Cross Station on Sunday afternoon.
According to the victim’s mother, the teen suffered broken ribs, black eyes, a swollen temple, and bruising. The girl was also reportedly dragged to the ground and stomped on by the attackers.
Despite the assault being captured on video, Victorian Police said they will not take action unless the victim makes a statement, according to 7News Melbourne. However, the victim’s mother says her daughter is too terrified to talk with police for fear of retaliation from her attackers.
A former police detective told Caldron Pool, “the reasons for police not taking action are unclear. 7News reported that the victim is unwilling to give a statement so they are unable to charge anyone. From my experience this is incorrect.
“In order to charge someone you must meet Prima Facie, and you must satisfy the proofs of offence. The video footage provides these proofs, so refusal of a victim statement should not withhold police charges.
“If police are able to identify the offenders without a victim statement and they can satisfy that there was no reasonable excuse for the assault, then charges can proceed. Anyone with half a brain can see that the criteria for reasonable excuse (permission, sport, self-defence, etc.) are not relevant to this case.”
The Victorian Government’s Victims of Crime page states:
If the alleged crimes are serious offences such as rape, assault or murder, the police may get advice from the Office of Public Prosecutions (OPP) before laying charges, and that they will need to continue to collect evidence. This means the investigation may take more time. Although both the police and OPP consider the views of the victim, decision about what charges to lay are based on evidence collected during the investigation, legal principles and the public interest.
A friend of the victim is said to have uploaded the video to social media where it was shared more than 17,000 times before Facebook allegedly removed it.
The assault has received little if any media attention, but of course, if the roles were reversed there’d be nationwide outrage and a concerted manhunt for the attackers. Why is that?
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