A man has been charged after allegedly punching a young boy and stabbing his mother with a pair of scissors in a random attack outside a police station, AAP reports.

The man from Sunshine West, in the city’s inner west, was overnight charged with a series of assault-related offences including affray, intentionally causing injury, two counts of unlawful assault, conduct endangering life and conduct endangering serious injury.

He was remanded to appear at Melbourne Magistrates’ Court on Wednesday.

The boy and his mother, who were visiting from the Phillip Island township of Cowes, were taken to hospital with non-life-threatening injuries.

Police do not believe the parties knew one another.