The Supreme Court of Victoria granted bail to a 16-year-old Aboriginal child charged with Schedule 1 offences (aggravated burglary and armed robbery), finding exceptional circumstances established by the combined weight of the applicant's youth, Aboriginality, suspected intellectual disability, lack of criminal history, and availability of Youth Justice supervised bail support. On unacceptable risk, the Court held the prosecution had not discharged its burden, finding that strict conditions including curfew, non-association orders, residence requirements, and engagement with the Youth Justice supervised bail service reduced the risk to an acceptable level, notwithstanding the seriousness of the alleged offending and that it was committed while on two counts of bail. The Court emphasised that under the recently amended Bail Act, the standalone provisions in ss 3A and 3B require that an applicant's Aboriginality and status as a child must underpin both the exceptional circumstances and unacceptable risk assessments, and that while the 2025 amendments elevated community safety to overarching importance and removed the 'last resort' principle for child remand, courts must still impose the minimum intervention required in the circumstances.
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