A Mooroopna boy and a former Mooroopna boy applied for bail in a Children’s Court.
They are both charged with two counts of armed robbery, intentionally causing injury, assault, assault with a weapon and lighting a fire in the open air endangering the property of others.
The Mooroopna boy is also charged with committing an indictable offence while on bail.
Detective Senior Constable Jessica Stievano told the court the attacks happened on Monday, October 6, at a house in Mooroopna and at the former Mooroopna Secondary College oval.
She said the two accused and a 16-year-old boy were at a house when the former Mooroopna boy allegedly pulled out a knife and told the 16-year-old to give him his jumper, shoes and vape as a payback for an incident the victim was on bail for.
Two hours later, the three boys met at the oval under the guise of giving the 16-year-old’s clothes back.
Instead, the Mooroopna boy allegedly pulled a knife on the 16-year-old and demanded the clothes he was wearing and his phone.
Both boys kicked him, and the Mooroopna boy told the 16-year-old he would “run through your house with a gun if you snitch”, Det Sen Constable Stievano said.
The court heard police found several videos of the alleged assault on the Mooroopna boy’s phone, including one that shows the 16-year-old with his jeans around his ankles and the Mooroopna boy holding a machete to his face.
Another showed both boys kicking the 16-year-old, the court heard.
At 12.20pm that night, a fire was lit outside the victim’s house, which police allege was lit by the two accused.
The court was told the Mooroopna boy was already on bail for a similar alleged attack on a 14-year-old boy, who was allegedly stripped, assaulted and threatened with a knife before his phone and AirPods were taken in an attack by three teens.
The incident was also filmed.
The Mooroopna boy was also on bail for allegedly stealing a food delivery driver’s car with a co-accused 13-year-old boy on August 22, and allegedly chasing a man outside Woolworths in Mooroopna with a knife on August 31.
The Mooroopna boy and the 13-year-old also allegedly broke into a Mooroopna massage parlour at 2am on September 1, armed with knives, and stole a phone and money before spraying powder from a fire extinguisher into a room where two workers had been sleeping, and locking them in.
On yet another occasion, on August 21, the Mooroopna boy is said to have punched and kicked another 14-year-old.
Det Sen Constable Stievano told the court the former Mooroopna boy was on a good behaviour bond for several charges including driving in a dangerous manner, theft of a vehicle and reckless conduct endangering life for an incident that included driving at speeds of up to 150km/h, and colliding with another car in Shepparton.
Det Sen Constable Stievano said the 16-year-old alleged victim in the current armed robbery case was concerned if the two boys were bailed, they would seek reprisals.
“Although he is 14, he is well aware of what he is doing,” she said.
The prosecutor told the court a new Victorian bail law that was introduced about a week earlier said that as the Mooroopna boy was on bail for a “specified offence” — in this case armed robbery — “he must be deemed an unacceptable risk” unless the magistrate was “satisfied there was not a high probability of him not committing another specified offence”.
Despite this, the Mooroopna boy’s solicitor urged the magistrate to bail his client, saying he was 14, had a disability, and had no priors.
The magistrate refused the Mooroopna boy bail.
“The game’s changed. The bail act has changed,” the magistrate said.
“The overriding consideration is for the protection of the community.
“It (the first alleged armed robbery on the 14-year-old) was outrageously serious offending, and he’s come before me again.
“I think there is a significant chance he will commit another offence.”
The former Mooroopna boy’s solicitor said her client was in a different set of circumstances to his co-accused, as he was not on bail.
She said he was 14, had a limited criminal history, and could live in Melbourne — away from where the alleged offending occurred.
The boy was bailed by the magistrate on conditions including that he lives in Melbourne and not come to Greater Shepparton unless with his mother or a youth worker, abide by a night-time curfew, and obey Youth Justice directions.
Both boys will appear in court again later in October.
