A 15-year-old boy has been charged over an attack on a teenager with autism who was beaten with spanners outside a Melbourne high school.
Police are investigating the assault on Quinn Lahiff-Jenkins, 14, after video footage emerged of him being pinned to the ground and repeatedly punched in the head near a tram stop outside Northcote High School on Tuesday afternoon.
The 15-year-old boy from Reservoir was charged by detectives from the transit safety division on Thursday afternoon, with affray, recklessly cause injury and intentionally cause injury.
He has been bailed to face a children’s court.
Video footage of the incident obtained by News Corp shows the teenager being grabbed by his shirt and pulled violently off his bike about 3.45pm on Tuesday.
He is then pinned to the ground while lying on his back as a boy repeatedly punches him in the head.
The footage shows several boys holding large spanners, which they repeatedly swing at Quinn during the incident, hitting him in the legs and back.
At one stage, a bystander attempts to intervene but he is also attacked with a spanner.
Later in the video, Quinn is pushed violently to the ground and kicked in the head.
“You got a problem? You got a problem?” one of the assailants can be heard saying.
Paramedics were called to the scene at 4pm and took Quinn to the Austin Hospital.
Quinn's mother, Carmen Lahiff-Jenkins, told radio station 3AW on Thursday morning that her son, who was left with bruising on his face and legs, was recovering after the attack.
"Quinn was flipped off his bike and beaten with spanners, kicked, punched and hounded around Northcote tram stop," she said.
"It’s an incredible level of violence, certainly I would never have expected it. It's [mine] and my husband's worst nightmare, and I know it's the worst nightmare of most parents who have an autistic child."
The group had allegedly bullied Quinn and his friend on social media, before forcing him to meet them.
"Quinn is a very loyal friend and very justice-driven so he contacted these kids on social media and said, 'Look, you are bullying my friend, I don't like you, you are a bad person', teenage language, that sort of thing," Ms Lahiff-Jenkins said.
"Then the children rang him and said come down to the school, we want to meet outside the front ... and if you don't come down we are going to come to your house and rape your mother."
Ms Lahiff-Jenkins said the footage was taken by one of Quinn's friends who was at the tram stop and felt she should document the incident so she could provide the footage to police.
She learnt of the attack when her son called her from the back of an ambulance.
"You put your child out into the world. You can't keep them in your house just because they are autistic, you want them to be able to experience the world like everyone else, and they go out into the community and they are not safe," Ms Lahiff-Jenkins said.
"No adults stopped to help, no-one beeped their horns or did anything from their cars.
"You hope people in the community step up for other people. You hope other people will step up and that's not happened."
She urged parents to talk to their children more about the way they speak and their behaviour.
"We have a problem in society we need to address."
The principal of the school attended by some the alleged attackers said the "awful" incident had upset the school community.
"I'm meeting with the families of those involved to get to the bottom of what happened, and appropriate disciplinary measures will be taken," the principal said.
Ms Lahiff-Jenkins said she was concerned for Quinn's mental health.
"He was confident about going out in the world, as all 14-year-old boys are, very cocky, as a privileged young man he has the world at his fingertips, so I think he's pretty shocked," she said.
"He didn't set up a fight or intend to have this situation happen, it just happened. And he feels a bit disempowered. He initially was incredibly shocked someone would hurt him like that. He doesn't live a life of violence, he hasn't been exposed to much violence."
Premier Daniel Andrews condemned the behaviour and said it was a "terrible incident".
"As bad as this incident was, as difficult as it is to comprehend, it's one of a very small number of incidents that we see across our schools," he said.
Opposition Leader Matthew Guy said it was "one of the most distressing images" he had seen all year.
"It's absolutely disgraceful ... My heart goes out to the little boy, to his family. It is an absolute disgrace," he said.
"Those children's behaviour is appalling and now the Education Department, those thugs' parents and indeed the police all need to come together to solve this because that is obscene behaviour against an innocent kid."
Victoria Police Chief Commissioner Graham Ashton said he too was concerned by the footage of the attack.
"I watched that myself and [it's] really just disgusting behaviour against this young fella," he told ABC radio.
with AAP
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