A 13-year-old boy who stabbed a man in a KFC has been allowed to walk away scot-free after the justice system deemed the assailant too young to face charges.
Ethan Tirant, 19, almost died when he was stabbed in the chest at the Packenham fast food outlet in Melbourne‘s south-east in January, last year.
Mr Tirant was with his girlfriend and a mate when a group of boys approached started harassing them.
When the trio left the restaurant, one of the boys took out a knife and plunged the 28cm blade into Mr Tirant’s chest under his last rib, narrowly missing his heart.
A 13-year-old boy who stabbed Ethan Tirant (pictured), 19, and left a giant scar on his chest has not faced any kind of punishment as the justice system deemed him to be too young
Mr Tirant’s father, Leroy Tirant, expressed his fury over the cowardly attack.
‘It was through no fault of his own, he was just there having dinner,’ he told A Current Affair.
‘And you get these wannabe little gangster kids at 13 and 14-years-old trying to start a fight.’
Mr Tirant was rushed to hospital, with his panicked girlfriend calling his parents to inform them about what had happened.
Mr Tirant also messaged his parents while travelling in the ambulance, telling them ‘I love you both, I’m sorry’ before blacking out.
He underwent emergency open heart surgery for a punctured lung and aorta after arriving at the hospital. He thought he was going to die at any moment.
‘I just remember slowly falling asleep, and everything was going real white,’ he recalled.
‘I’m like, ‘Oh, that’s it, I’m going to die. Like this it it. Can’t believe I was only around for 18 years. This sucks’.’
He awoke from a coma some 12 hours later to find a giant scar going down the middle of his chest.
Mr Tirant (pictured) believed he was going to die at any moment after he was stabbed in the chest by the boy outside a KFC restaurant in Packenham last year
Surgeons were shocked that the young man had survived and told him that if the blade had moved one millimetre further in or to the side of his chest, he’d be dead.
They also told him that if he had breathed ‘wrong’ or had moved slightly to his left during the assault, it would have proved fatal.
The 13-year-old boy was charged for stabbing Mr Tirant, but the charges were dropped as it couldn’t be proven that the boy could understand what he did was seriously wrong.
Both Mr Tirant and his family relayed their shock over the fact the boy never faced any punishment.
‘Like you carry a knife, you stab someone, think to anyone that’s attempted murder, but apparently not,’ Mr Tirant said.
His father revealed one of the boys with his son’s attacker had faced almost 300 charges over a two-year-period and had never appeared in court or been found guilty for any offences.
‘These kids are just continually offending knowing that they’re never going to face a consequence for it,’ he said.
The Victorian government is set to increase the age of criminal responsibility from 10 to 14 by 2027. It means Mr Tirant’s assailant never would have faced charges if the change to the laws were in force at the time of the stabbing (pictured, Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews)
Mr Tirant, who struggled with taking his shirt off for a long time, explained that he’s the only one has suffered since the attack.
‘He’s probably doing the same thing now, just cruising around with his mates, enjoying his actual life. I can’t because I have to look at this (scar) every day,’ he said.
Emergency department figures have expressed their concerns about the rise of knife crime amongst children and teens in Victoria.
Data has revealed there has been a 325 per cent increase in 10 to 19 year-olds turning up to public hospitals with knife injuries in the state over three years.
It comes as the Victorian government is set to increase the age of criminal responsibility from 10 to 14 by 2027.
It means Mr Tirant’s assailant never would have faced charges if the change to the state’s laws were in force at the time of the stabbing.
