As the mother pushed the twins in a stroller down a laneway in Smallman Place, Perth, on Monday, a teenage girl was seen on surveillance video snatching her by the hair and pulling her.
Since then, a 15-year-old girl has been accused of the alleged heist that left even the toughest police officers speechless.
The youngster was granted bail from Banksia Hill Juvenile Detention Center on Saturday, according to a close family of the accused, who cannot be identified for legal reasons. The relative said the girl came from a “disadvantaged home.”
The 15-year-old was ‘desperate for money,’ the family member said to the West Australian, although she had given the girl and another girl $20 to go to the store hours before the alleged incident.
‘I don’t even know what to say, it’s just too hard to even think about it. In fact, watching that video made me cry,’ she said.
‘It shocked me. That’s awful to even see something like that happening.’
A scooter was shown on WA Police surveillance footage outside the residence where a 15-year-old girl was detained.
The horrific image depicts a girl forcefully pulling a mother down as she clings to her stroller.
The 37-year-old mother, who is five months pregnant, trips and her pram topples, launching her two toddlers’ legs into the air as they wail and scream.
The adolescent then pulls the lady farther back down the passageway in what the authorities said was an effort to grab her purse.
Police advised the woman, who has fallen onto her stomach and is more than midway through her pregnancy, to see a doctor as soon as possible.
A teenager was seen on CCTV riding a scooter with another little girl just before the 12.40pm assault.
Later that day, a scooter was parked in the driveway of a house, where two teens were detained.
Footage shows a teenager attempting to steal the 37-year-old mother’s handbag in a vicious daylight attack
The event occurred in broad daylight in a Perth neighbourhood, and horrified users filled social media with shock and despair.
Police video captures the girls sobbing and cursing as other family members scream in the background.
Police noted that the second adolescent was just detained as part of preliminary investigations, and that only the 15-year-old girl had been charged in connection with the assault.
The video that WA Police published caused a social media uproar, with many people startled by the brutality and others worried for the mother’s and kids’ wellbeing.
‘I hope they are ok… thank goodness the mother strapped the children in the pram properly… they would’ve been so scared,’ one person said.
Police arrested a 15-year-old girl (pictured) a short time after the alleged attack and have charged her with robbery
Footage showed a teenager approaching the mother from behind and pulling her by her hair down a laneway
‘That poor mother and her toddlers must be traumatised, I hope they’re ok including the unborn baby. It’s absolutely shocking,’ another said.
The girl was charged with one count of robbery and is set to appear in Geraldton Magistrates Court on September 13.
Investigators released the CCTV footage of the attack to help piece together what happened and asked that anyone with relevant information contact contact police.
Neighbours said they were ‘disgusted’ by the brutal daylight assault, with some other local mothers now too afraid to leave their homes.
‘How does someone of that age have the audacity to do that…an adult with a pram, it’s disgusting,’ one neighbour said.
‘I’ve never witnessed or heard of any violence of that level here.’
Another added: ‘I’m a mother of young boy and I walk that same street, it makes me not want to walk around there anymore.’
The mother tried to hold on to her knocked-over pram as the teen tried to steal her handbag.