Teen who allegedly abducted Glen Huntly schoolboy and left him with brain damage hit with new charges over alleged robbery of 13-year-old girl

Three teenagers accused of forcibly kidnapping a schoolboy and causing him brain damage are also alleged to have been involved in the robbery of a 13-year-old girl who was beaten and forced to strip to her underwear, claims the police.

One of the teenagers, a 15-year-old boy who cannot be named for legal reasons, learned on Friday that he would be released on bail after waiting more than a fortnight for a magistrate’s decision.

The boy was previously faced with 25 charges after he and two others allegedly committed a crime in a stolen Volkswagen Tiguan in September, wielding machetes to steal from vulnerable Melbourne students as they left school for the day.

A 14-year-old boy was placed in a six-day coma after the trio forcibly abducted him in Glen Huntly in Melbourne’s south-east on September 4 as he walked home.

The vehicle took off with the boy hanging from a passenger door, dragging him about 500 feet and then throwing him from the vehicle, police allege.

On Friday, prosecutors revealed the 15-year-old also faced five new charges, including three related to the alleged robbery of a 13-year-old girl about three weeks before the Glen Huntly incident.

The teenager is said to have lured the girl to a house in Cranbourne before other teenagers repeatedly punched her, hit her on the head and pulled her hair while demanding she give them her belongings.

Police said the teen was a co-suspect in the Glen Huntly incident and that his girlfriend, a 14-year-old, was also involved in the robbery, as was a 14-year-old boy who was also arrested in connection with the Glen Huntly attack.

Video of the alleged robbery shown in a juvenile court on Friday showed the 13-year-old girl covering her face as someone shouted “show your face,” pulling off her sweatpants and being punched as loud music played.

A police officer warned the magistrate against granting bail to the 15-year-old after he was reportedly seen in the driveway of the house where the victim left in different clothes than she arrived in.

She was given shorts and a T-shirt and told to leave after her own clothes, shoes and jewelry were stolen, the officer said.

He said the 14-year-old boy who was attacked in Glen Huntly had to remain in hospital for a further seven weeks and had permanent brain damage, the extent of which was unknown.

He would also never be able to return to regular education and would have to wear hearing aids, the officer said.

The boy’s last memory of the day he was attacked was during math class.

A text read out in court on Friday showed the 14-year-old girl charged over the Glen Huntly incident feared she had killed the boy after she said he was stabbed by the 14-year-old. “I’m in fucking trouble right now, I can’t sleep,” she said.

Youth workers on Friday supported the 15-year-old boy’s supervised release, and the magistrate granted him bail to live with his sister under strict conditions, including that he adhere to a curfew and have no contact with his co-accused.

The magistrate found that the 15-year-old was a vulnerable young person with an intellectual disability.

However, she also acknowledged that the impact of the alleged crimes on the victims was “significant.”

The court previously heard the 15-year-old was living in a stolen BMW with his mother when police arrested him on September 9.

Their previous address was searched by police, with windows smashed, doors taken off hinges and minimal personal items or furniture found inside.

The charges against the 15-year-old boy relate to crimes allegedly committed between August 12 and September 9 this year.