A violent African woman who brutally bashed an autistic teenager at Altona Pier in Melbourne has had her jail sentence and conviction overturned on appeal.
Alajeck Anai, now 19, was in October given just six months in a youth justice training centre for her role in the February 2024 attack, but today a County Court judge set aside the previous court orders and cancelled her custodial sentence.
Judge Pardeep Tiwana described the bashing as “appalling”, but gave Anai a 15-month community corrections order including 80 hours of community work, 30 of which can be for psychological treatment and rehabilitation.
Anai pleaded guilty to one charge of affray when police withdrew charges of intentionally causing injury and recklessly causing injury, and Melbourne Magistrates Court heard at the time that she threw 43 of the 55 punches suffered by her victim, who was a complete stranger to her and four years younger.
Several other alleged attackers cannot be identified due to their age.
The County Court heard on Wednesday that Anai had suffered family violence and abuse at home, had never had her own bedroom, and had experienced trauma and severe disadvantage, The Age reported.
The court heard she was doing a makeup artistry course to turn her life around, had engaged with a psychologist, and was doing “excellently” at an anger management course.
“It was horrible, it was nasty, it was disgusting,” Judge Tiwana said of the attack at the appeal hearing.
“Had she been older or had been in trouble before, I would not have hesitated locking her up.”
What you did … was absolutely appalling. It was … serious, violent conduct, attacking a defenceless young girl, vulnerable, and there’s a group of you attacking and pulling her hair, punching her and kicking. How do you feel about that?” he asked Anai.
Anai responded that she was sorry, and that she was “very empathetic” for the victim and her family.
The victim’s mother Anna Axiak fought back tears outside court as she expressed shock that Anai would avoid having a criminal record, and said her daughter had still not been back to school since the attack.
The now-15-year-old is still scared to leave the house, she said, even after being assigned a social worker and a psychologist.
At a previous appeal hearing Anai’s lawyer said the magistrate had not assessed his client’s suitability for youth detention, and claimed she suffered racial abuse online before the savage beating.
Her legal team said there should have been a report assessing how Anai might cope at a youth justice centre, and giving an insight into her past traumas and state of mind.
During sentencing in October Magistrate Justin Foster said it was difficult to understand how Anai could display such hate and anger towards someone she didn’t know, and called the attack “disgusting and outrageous behaviour”.
“You essentially beat the crap out of her and you did that without any provocation whatsoever,” he said.
When the video of the attack was shown to the court the victim had to leave the room and Mr Foster reprimanded a member of the public who commented “pack of wild dogs”.
The video shows several attackers repeatedly punching the teenager, pulling her hair, and pouring an energy drink over her head.
The savage bashing only stopped when an unknown man stepped in saying: “That’s enough, yeah? She’s little.”
Header image: Left, Alajeck Anai (Nine News). Right, footage of the attack.
