The mother of a teenage girl who was assaulted at a Hunter shopping centre last year is calling for more to be done to make young people safer, after footage of a similar incident circulated on social media last week.
Police interviewed two girls, aged 13 and 14, at Belmont Police Station last Saturday over an attack on a 14-year-old girl the previous day at Charlestown Oval.
The victim required hospital treatment for her injuries.
Officers dealt with the pair under the Young Offenders Act - a pathway of warnings, cautions and conferences designed to keep young people out of the criminal justice system.
But the mother of a girl injured in a similar incident late last year, who the Herald is choosing not to identify, said news of the Charlestown assault combined with the experience of her daughter's encounter had spurred her belief that more should be done to deter young people from violence.
In her daughter's case, she and a friend were bashed at Westfield Kotara - the 15-year-old managed to escape behind the counter of a nearby restaurant to seek help as the assault on her friend continued.
The mother is not suggesting the same people were responsible for both the Charlestown and Kotara incidents, but she said it showed there were no meaningful repercussions for violence among young people.
She said her daughter did not know her attackers and the incident left emotional and psychological scars.
The mother told the Herald the investigating officer informed her last week that her daughter's assailants had been dealt with under the Young Offenders Act.
"It's changed my poor daughter's life immensely," she said.
"It's not a deterrent - there needs to be a middle ground between locking them up and giving them a caution because it is clearly not working."
A NSW Police spokesperson said community safety was the top priority, but "the key to long and lasting change is working with at-risk young people and engaging them to ensure they make good decisions - diverting them away from criminal activity".
The spokesperson said NSW Police has a range of initiatives, in partnership with government departments, non-government agencies and support services, as well as programs through PCYC, to "help prevent people being drawn into a life of crime and violence".
