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By Tara Cosoleto
October 10, 2025 — 3.23pm
Two teenagers charged over the stabbing deaths of two children have refused to come to court for a compulsory DNA procedure, and prosecutors are searching for a way to force the accused to attend.
The boys, aged 16 and 15 and who cannot be identified due to their age, were due to face a children’s court on Friday after being charged with murder over the deaths of Chol Achiek, 12, and 15-year-old Dau Akueng.
Dau Akueng, 15 (left), and Chol Achiek, 12, were attacked and killed in Cobblebank last month.
Chol and Dau were allegedly set upon by a group of males at Cobblebank, in Melbourne’s outer north-west, on September 6 while walking home from a basketball match.
Prosecutors have applied for the two accused, who are among eight males charged over the deaths, to undergo a compulsory procedure to obtain their DNA.
But the boys refused to get on the bus to court on Friday morning, a youth justice custodial operations manager told the court.
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The operations manager said the teens met with their case managers and lawyers on Thursday, and were advised they needed to attend because there was a court order in place.
However, the teens repeatedly refused to get on the bus because they did not want to be subjected to the compulsory DNA procedure, the manager said.
He told the court there were no other measures youth justice could take to force teens to attend court when they refused.
The prosecutor asked if the youth justice department had the ability to use reasonable force, but the manager said he did not believe it could.
Both teens had to attend court in person for the application for compulsory procedure to be heard, the magistrate said.
The suburban street where the attack took place.Credit: Luis Enrique Ascui
He said the refusals to attend were “not an infrequent occurrence” and almost amounted to frustrating the administration of justice.
The magistrate said he had already made the order for youth justice to force the teens to attend court, but that had not worked.
The prosecutor suggested the court could sit at the youth justice centre to hear the application, but the magistrate said that would not happen.
“We’re not all going out there,” the magistrate said.
“I’m not creating a scenario where we have the court sitting [at the centre] because a child refuses.”
The prosecutor said she would need some time to consider what other options were available to force the boys to attend.
The magistrate adjourned the application to Wednesday.
Three other accused males, also aged 15 and 16, will return to a children’s court later this month.
The young men charged – Prince Conteh, 19, Peter Addo, 18, and Abel Sorzor, 19 – will face Melbourne Magistrates’ Court in December.
AAP
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