Two sadistic brothers commit shocking crime
Daily Mail
Published: September 04, 2009, 22:58
London: Aged just 10 and 11, the two sadistic brothers were already well known to police and social services.
So how, critics were asking Thursday night, were they allowed to commit one of the most shocking crimes Britain has ever known.
The pair subjected two innocent children to a savage torture and beating ordeal involving bricks, lit cigarettes and a noose that left one of the victims barely alive.
On Thursday, they yawned in court as the horror of their crimes unfolded - and they escaped trial for attempted murder by pleading guilty to lesser charges.
The case brought to an end a shocking three-year rampage of violence and intimidation that the brothers conducted under the noses of police and social workers.
It culminated in the sickening attack carried out in April this year, when they left a nine-year-old boy battered and bleeding and his 11-year-old companion pleading: "Leave me, I can't see. Leave me to die."
The horrific and protracted assault was carried out while the baby-faced culprits, who cannot be named for legal reasons, were supposedly under the care of scandal-hit Doncaster Social Services - and on the day that they should have been interviewed by police about an attack a week earlier.
The younger of the pair was on bail, his accomplice was being 'monitored' by a youth offending team after being placed on a supervision order.
The case has inevitably underlined chilling similarities with that of two-year-old James Bulger, killed in 1993 by two boys aged 10.
The convicted brothers even used to watch the same Child's Play videos as Robert Thompson and Jon Venables, who were released from custody in 2001 after serving just eight years of their so-called life sentences.
Thursday night relatives of the brothers' victims urged "proper justice" and called for them to be locked away for life. One described what they did as "despicable and disgusting" and called for "a sentence to fit the crime".
Daily Mail
Published: September 04, 2009, 22:58
London: Aged just 10 and 11, the two sadistic brothers were already well known to police and social services.
So how, critics were asking Thursday night, were they allowed to commit one of the most shocking crimes Britain has ever known.
The pair subjected two innocent children to a savage torture and beating ordeal involving bricks, lit cigarettes and a noose that left one of the victims barely alive.
On Thursday, they yawned in court as the horror of their crimes unfolded - and they escaped trial for attempted murder by pleading guilty to lesser charges.
The case brought to an end a shocking three-year rampage of violence and intimidation that the brothers conducted under the noses of police and social workers.
It culminated in the sickening attack carried out in April this year, when they left a nine-year-old boy battered and bleeding and his 11-year-old companion pleading: "Leave me, I can't see. Leave me to die."
The horrific and protracted assault was carried out while the baby-faced culprits, who cannot be named for legal reasons, were supposedly under the care of scandal-hit Doncaster Social Services - and on the day that they should have been interviewed by police about an attack a week earlier.
The younger of the pair was on bail, his accomplice was being 'monitored' by a youth offending team after being placed on a supervision order.
The case has inevitably underlined chilling similarities with that of two-year-old James Bulger, killed in 1993 by two boys aged 10.
The convicted brothers even used to watch the same Child's Play videos as Robert Thompson and Jon Venables, who were released from custody in 2001 after serving just eight years of their so-called life sentences.
Thursday night relatives of the brothers' victims urged "proper justice" and called for them to be locked away for life. One described what they did as "despicable and disgusting" and called for "a sentence to fit the crime".
