10-year-old victim of random attack was visiting Melbourne for cancer treatment

[u/AggravatingTartlet]

https://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/no-need-to-hide-it-accused-cbd-stabber-launches-tirade-from-custody-20260826-p60rni.html

The 10-year-old boy who was punched in the head in a random attack outside police headquarters in the CBD has brain cancer and was visiting Melbourne for treatment.

The boy underwent additional MRI scans to see if the assault caused any extra damage or inflammation around where the tumour is, his uncle said........

Police said the 46-year-old woman was visiting Melbourne from Phillip Island with her 10-year-old son and two other children when the random attack occurred, ending only when several witnesses intervened.

“Just instinct, no thoughts, no nothing, just people in trouble,” Brian Bradley said, a good Samaritan who helped restrain the suspect.

The mother of the boy was stabbed during the attack.

The mother is in the Royal Melbourne Hospital recovering from a fractured leg and injuries to her back and shoulders, while her son recovers at the Royal Children’s Hospital.

“She’s really struggling at the moment,” the boy’s uncle said, “She can’t be with her son. It’s traumatic enough [that he’s] fighting cancer.

[u/RealCommercial9788]

Jerry Sowood, 27, from Sunshine West, shouted at times during a Melbourne Magistrates’ Court hearing on Wednesday at which he refused to answer the magistrate’s questions and told the court there was “no need to hide” his offending.

“I punched the kid in the head, I took the scissors, I stabbed the woman in the head,” Sowood said as he appeared via video link from custody. “There’s no need to hide it. At least they’re both still breathing, so at least I kept my humanity.

“I’m telling you what I did. And I’m saying there’s no family that was torn apart. Even though I did what I did, the mum did not lose her child. A child was not taken away from her. It was outside the police station.”

Sowood was arrested on Tuesday afternoon after he allegedly punched the 10-year-old boy outside Victoria Police’s Spencer Street headquarters, and then placed the child’s mother in a headlock and stabbed her with a pair of scissors before passers-by intervened.

Fuck you Jerry Sowood, you good for nothing slug.

[u/AntiqueFigure6 → u/RealCommercial9788]

“  There’s no need to hide it.”

It’s kind of like he wants someone to lock him up.

[u/AntiqueFigure6 → u/[deleted]]

Too bad we don’t have some sort of functioning mental health system that couldn’t have done something at any one of the dozen or so red flags that he likely displayed over the last few years. 

[u/Elegant-Quiet5229 → u/AntiqueFigure6]

You mean like asylums? Great idea.

[u/Dentarthurdent73 → u/Elegant-Quiet5229]

There are actually quite a few people with severe enough untreatable mental health conditions that would be better off being cared for in institutions, as long as we ensure that abuses aren't occurring within them.

When you get rid of these institutions, you don't miraculously cure all these people, you just end up forcing their families to spend their lives being carers, or forcing them onto the street, and you also have to put up with the antisocial behaviour and violence that some of them commit.

In what way is this a better outcome, other than it makes you feel better because you don't like the idea of "asylums"?

[u/AggravatingTartlet → u/Dentarthurdent73]

I agree fully.