Coronial investigation into Solomone Taufe'ulungaki's death lays bare tragic reality of Victorian knife crime

A Victorian coroner has found roughly one in 14 victims of fatal stabbings in the state over the past decade were children.

Coroner Ingrid Giles on Thursday delivered her findings into the 2020 death of Solomone Taufe'ulungaki, who was stabbed after being chased by a group of 10 youths who mistakenly believed the 15-year-old schoolboy was a member of a rival gang.

There was no formal inquest into the death, but Ms Giles's investigation looked at the prevalence of youth knife attacks in Melbourne based on data from the state's homicide register.

She noted that, overall, there were 245 homicides involving knives in Victoria between January 2014 and September 2025, and a further 35 deaths involving sharp or knife-like objects.

She said the vast majority of the 245 knife deaths involved ad