A young woman has allegedly been stabbed by a teenage stranger at a Melbourne shopping centre while on her way to work.
Victoria Police sad the 25-year-old was walking through the M-City Shopping Centre in Clayton just before 8am on Thursday when she was allegedly confronted and stabbed by a knife-wielding male.
A passer-by stopped to help her and called Triple-Zero, and the woman, from Mount Waverly, was taken to hospital in a serious but stable condition.
The alleged attacker fled the scene but was arrested a short time later at a medical centre in the same suburb.
The 16-year-old from the Stonnington area was charged with charged with intentionally cause injury, recklessly cause injury, assault with weapon, possess controlled weapon, theft and commit indictable offence whilst on bail.
New Crime Statistics Agency data released hours after the stabbing showed a 4.2% increase in criminal offences, and a 2.4% increase in the crime rate for the 2025 calendar year.
Police responded to the data by declaring that the state’s steadily rising crime rates were levelling off.
“Victoria Police analysis suggests positive signs are beginning to emerge, with overall crime starting to stabilise after several years of sharp increases,” police said.
Rampant crime, including an African gang violence epidemic resulting of dozens of recent machete murders and attacks in recent years, is now the number one issue for Victorians, according to a recent poll that showed One Nation surging.
The data released on Thursday showed four “youth gang members” were arrested per day in 2025, while police seized a record 17,400 knives and machetes.
Overall offences committed by child offenders increased 2.3%, and police arrested 1,223 children a combined 6,997 times. Children committed 57.6% of carjackings, 52.6% of home invasions, 47.8% of aggravated burglaries and 62.4% of robberies.
Home invasions, described as “aggravated burglaries” by the statistics agency, remain at the second highest levels in history despite falling by 4.1% last year following the creation of a special taskforce called Operation Trinity.
Header image: The M-City Shopping Centre in Clayton (Instagram).
