A BOY, 16, has been charged over the alleged coward punch that left a promising soccer player fighting for his life in hospital.

The boy handed himself into Richmond station this afternoon following extensive media coverage and a plea from the victim’s mother for the person responsible to come forward.

Detectives from Knox Crime Investigation Unit arrested and charged the 16-year-old boy following an alleged assault at an out-of-control party in Bayswater on Saturday night.

He has been charged with recklessly causing serious injury and other assault-related offences and was bailed to appear at a Children’s Court at a later date.

Police were called to the underage rave at at Bayswater Youth Hall on Station St about 9pm on Saturday after organisers were concerned a group of people had gatecrashed the party.

Jaiden, 15, was walking away from the drama when he was allegedly struck from behind by a young man running past him.

The blow caused him to fall to the ground where witnesses said he hit his head on the footpath.

He suffered bleeding to the brain and was placed in an induced coma at the Royal Children’s Hospital where his condition improved from critical to serious overnight.

media_camera Jaiden is in a serious condition at the Children’s Hospital.

media_camera The teenage victim’s brother, Anthony, and mother, Karyn, have appealed for the attacker to come forward. Picture: Mark Dadswell

The charge came after Jaiden’s mother Karyn, who wished to keep their surname unpublished, fought back tears yesterday as she pleaded with the person responsible for attacking her son to surrender to police.

“Be honest, please,” Karyn said in an appeal to her son’s attacker.

“You might not realise that the outcome of your action is what it is now but you need to know and other young people need to know that this is not on.

“My son was invited to that party. He was not a gatecrasher. He’s a good boy.”

Police, meanwhile, have defended their response to the out-of-control party.

Police were criticised after a damning video, filmed by a reveller at the scene, emerged showing an officer refusing to get involved in breaking up one of the fights that had spilt onto the street.

The panicked party-goer can be heard repeatedly urging the officers to help, at one point saying “he just got kicked in the face”.

The policeman responded: “What do you want us to do? Walk through all that so we get hit? No.”

Superintendent Graeme Arthur said the police had been confronted with a “volatile situation” but admitted the officer’s response was not appropriate.

The Senior Constable involved had been spoken with, he said, and a review of the police response would be conducted.

Jaiden was one of about 500 teens who had been at the underage rave when its organisers called police.

Police attended and shut down the alcohol-free event about 9pm, forcing revellers out onto the street.

Despite many partygoers still hanging around the area, police left.

But at 10.30pm, they were called back to the scene as tensions had boiled over and a series of fights had broke out.

It was around this time Jaiden called his mother and asked her to come pick him up because he had been hit.

When his mother arrived, she said Jaiden had “quite a severe gash” to his face but was conscious.

“He was talking to me and I asked him all the questions a mother would ask (about what happened),” she said.

But on the drive home to Carrum Downs, the Rowville Secondary College student took a turn for the worse and started to have a seizure in the car.

She rushed him to the William Angliss Hospital in Ferntree Gully where he was immediately transferred to the Children’s Hospital and placed in an induced coma.

media_camera The Bayswater party where Jaiden was attacked. Picture: Flashback Melbourne Photography

Karyn said it was hard to see her son, who plays for Bentleigh Greens Soccer Club, laying in hospital as he had always been so active.

She was adamant he did not drink alcohol, take drugs or smoke cigarettes because his health and fitness was his priority as he pursued his dream to play soccer professionally.

He was due to go to Italy next month for a trial with the Italian Soccer Management (ISM) in Perugia, she said.

“I’ve got my son who had the world at his feet and now he’s got a long road to go to get back to where he was,” she said.