Teen charged over bus stop stabbing outside Bateau Bay shopping centre

A teenager has been charged over a stabbing outside a NSW shopping centre, a week after two brutal stabbing attacks in the State shocked the world.

Police say the alleged victim, 20, was waiting at a bus stop outside the Bateau Bay shopping centre when three males approached him about 2.30pm on Monday.

The group became involved in a verbal altercation before the man was allegedly assaulted and stabbed in the back.

The three males fled the scene before emergency services arrived.

The 20-year-old was taken to hospital in a stable condition.

The 15-year-old boy was arrested at Toukley Police Station about 4.30pm on Monday.

It comes little more than a week after the Bondi Junction massacre and the Wakeley church stabbing that saw an Assyrian bishop attacked in front of parishioners during a live-streamed sermon.

Six shoppers were killed in the Bondi Junction shopping centre rampage carried out by Joel Cauchi, 40, and two people, including bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel were seriously injured in the Wakeley attack, allegedly carried out by a 16-year-old boy.

On April 12, an 18-year-old man was fatally stabbed near a primary school, leading to murder charges being laid against a trio of boys — the youngest of whom was 15.

NSW Premier Chris Minns has already said he is open to a further tightening of the State’s knife laws, which were dramatically beefed up after several fatal stabbings, including that of Steven Tougher in April last year.

The 29-year-old paramedic died outside a McDonald’s restaurant while he and a workmate took a break.

NSW Police have suggested in a submission to a Sentencing Council review the government should make it an indictable offence for any parent to allow their child to illegally possess a knife.

Parents who allow children to carry knives face a maximum penalty of $550.