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Police have arrested a 15-year-old boy after a video showed a student with autism being attacked by a group of spanner-wielding teenagers outside a Melbourne school.
Quinn Lahiff-Jenkins, 14, was attacked outside Northcote High School, in the city's inner-north, on Tuesday afternoon.
His assailants had armed themselves with spanners and turned on another boy when he tried to help the victim.
Carmen Lahiff-Jenkins said the teenagers targeted her son after he stood up for a friend who was being bullied.
She said they told her son, who does not attend Northcote High School, to meet outside the campus to "have a chat".
Because of his autism, he did not realise the danger he faced and was shocked by what happened next, Ms Lahiff-Jenkins said.
"They were putting things in inverted commas like, come down and we'll just have a 'chat'," she said.
"My older son had to explain to him, you know, if they put it in inverted commas that means something else and he was really surprised by that."
The boy, who attends Fitzroy High School, was taken to hospital with bruising to his face and legs.
Victoria Police says an investigation is underway.
Ms Lahiff-Jenkins said the attack was filmed by a friend of her son, who was not able to intervene but thought the video might help police.
"I know many families of autistic kids — this is their worst potential nightmare," she said.
"For us, it's played out and I can tell you it's very distressing because it's what we always worry about."
'Hyper-masculine, macho culture'
The State Government said "new security arrangements" were already being implemented following other incidents at schools in the past year.
Premier Daniel Andrews expressed confidence the latest case would be properly investigated.
"The school has taken this matter very seriously, as they should," he said.
"As bad as this incident was, as difficult as it is to comprehend, it is one of a very small number of incidents that we see across our schools."
Ms Lahiff-Jenkins earlier said she hoped police would lay charges but society also has a role to play in teaching boys violence was not acceptable.
"I definitely would like to see police lay charges," she said.
"But I also have some empathy for the parents of these kids. We don't always know what our kids are doing out in the community.
"We live in a hyper-masculine, macho kind of culture where we teach boys that this is the way they are supposed to behave."
Her son is sore but on the mend, she said.
"I think he's pretty shocked, he's learned a lot about people is what he said, and he's really surprised that they attacked him — he just never assumed any one would actually do that.
"I cannot believe what I saw and how I saw kids behaving."
Aggressive behaviour 'relatively rare' at Victorian schools
Northcote Principal Susan Harrap said she was meeting with the families of the students involved, and appropriate disciplinary measures would be taken.
"I'll be speaking to students about the incident today to make clear that this type of behaviour is unacceptable and to make sure anyone who is upset gets support," she said.
Ms Harrap said the school was responsible for reporting the incident to police.
"We'll continue to do whatever we can to help them with their investigation."
The Education Department insists such violence is not common.
"Incidents of violence and aggressive behaviour remain relatively rare in Victoria's more than 1,500 government schools."
Topics: community-and-society, bullying, autism-spectrum-disorder, schools, secondary-schools, northcote-3070, melbourne-3000, vic
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