An 18-year-old has been charged with murder following the fatal stabbing of a man by an alleged machete-wielding group amid plans to ban the weapon.
Timothy Leek was stabbed to death near the Marriott Waters shopping centre in Melbourne’s south-east on the night of 14 March.
The 24-year-old victim from Clyde was in a Lyndhurst car park when police allege up to 10 men ambushed him, some carrying machetes.
He was taken to hospital, where he later died.
Victoria will ban the sale and possession of machetes from 1 September.
Victoria police arrested an 18-year-old man and a 17-year-old boy in Doveton on Friday. Homicide detectives interviewed them and the 18-year-old was charged with murder. He will face Melbourne magistrates court later on Saturday.
The 17-year-old boy was released pending further inquiries.
Leek was the fourth person killed in a machete-related murder in Victoria in the past six months. The Victorian government moved laws in state parliament this week to ban the sale and possession of machetes from 1 September to combat their rising use.
The state opposition said it would move to amend the government’s legislation to make the machete ban immediate.
“We need to make sure that we don’t see the murder that we saw on Friday night again with machetes on our streets,” the opposition leader, Brad Battin, told reporters last week.
“We need to make sure that families aren’t waking up and seeing young offenders in their house with machetes.”
