'Hell of a picture': What young sadist said as his brother filmed blood-splattered victim of their attack on two innocent boys
The full appalling details of how two brothers aged only 11 and ten tortured, beat and humiliated two innocent schoolboys were outlined for the first time yesterday.
A courtroom fell silent as their acts of savagery and depravity beyond comprehension were described.
The hush was broken by sobbing when ten seconds of mobile phone footage taken by the older brother during the attack was screened.
The scene last year in Edlington, near Doncaster, where two boys were found after their horrific ordeal
The film shows the older victim lying on the ground, his face red with blood and his arms crossed over his chest to protect himself as the younger brother 'taunts and jabs him' with an object.
Despite poor audio quality, the older brother is heard to say: 'Hell of a picture.' The court heard that the younger brother later retorted: 'There's a lot of blood wasted.'
The brothers' behaviour stunned the country, but the sense of shock turned to anger once investigations revealed how police and council officials had missed 31 opportunities to intervene before the nightmare unfolded last April.
The horrific attack took place while the brothers were in foster care and despite the fact their family had been well known to social services for 14 years. The brothers were also both known to police. The ten-year-old 'had the potential' to become a psychopath, a child psychiatrist said.
Yesterday relatives of their two victims, aged nine and 11, heard how the youngsters were beaten in a ravine in Edlington, near Doncaster, South Yorkshire.
Sheffield Crown Court was told that during 90 minutes of 'painful humiliation', the terrified boys were battered with branches and rocks, throttled, slashed with barbed wire, punched and stamped on, then covered in a plastic sheet that was set alight.
They were repeatedly told they were going to be killed - and they believed it. One of the victims was asked: 'Are you dying now?'
By the time the attackers strolled away for a meeting with their father, the eldest victim was close to death and unable to move. Yesterday the attackers, one in a dark suit and the other in a crisp blue shirt and tie, sat quietly in court next to social workers. With their neat new haircuts they looked more like choristers than vicious criminals.
They are due to be sentenced tomorrow but are likely to be freed from custody within six years, before they reach the age of 18.
They will also enjoy lifelong anonymity, the same freedom from identification granted to the two boys responsible for the 1993 killing of two-year-old James Bulger.
Yesterday, Nicholas Campbell, QC, prosecuting, told in graphic detail what happened on that fateful day in Edlington. The brothers spotted the friends playing on their BMX bikes and put their plan into action 'working as a team'.
In a practised routine the brothers befriended the boys, who they had met just once before, by offering to show them a dead fox at a wooded ravine known as the Brickyards. Mr Campbell said what followed was 'both physically painful and emotionally traumatic'.
Horror: Relatives sob as they watch the mobile phone footage
Court sketch of the brothers in court with social workers and a female solicitor
At the start the boys were told they were going to be killed; later, threats to kill their family were made.
First the older victim was choked so he could not breathe. Both boys were forced to eat nettles and dirt before shards of glass from a broken beer bottle were held to their throats and used to scratch them.
Mr Campbell said the elder brother 'focused' on dealing with the 11-year-old and the younger brother on the nine-year-old.
They were gagged with their own socks. Neither dared retaliate.
The younger brother 'jumped' on his victim, landing with two feet on his face. Both boys had their private parts stamped on.
Bricks and stones were hurled at their heads. Some were too heavy for a child to throw and were dropped on them instead. The heaviest bloodstained rock found by police weighed 28lb.
A metal 'hoop' was used to partly strangle the older boy. Barbed wire was used to cut the younger boy's tongue, and his arm was cut with a sharp stick and a cigarette placed in the wound.
During their terrifying ordeal the boys were:
- Made to try and kill themselves
- Stripped naked and forced to perform sex acts
- Burned the eyelids and ears of the nine-year-old
- Choked with a clothes line
- Sink and heavy stones and other objects dropped on their heads
- Forced to eat dirt and nettles
- Told they would be killed
- Had arm cut open and a lit cigarette pushed into open wound
- Throats scratched with broken glass
- Burned under plastic sheet
The attackers were so concerned about getting incriminating evidence on their clothes that they ordered one boy to lick blood off their trainers. Mr Campbell said the brothers then moved on to acts of sexual humiliation, including forcing the older victim to perform a sex act on the younger boy.
The brothers then set fire to the boys' clothing, which had been taken off, before covering them with a large piece of plastic sheeting and setting it alight.
They boys were then moved to another spot where a clothes line was used in an attempt to strangle the younger boy. It was wound around his neck three times and pulled tight. One brother asked: 'Are you dying now?'
One brother then told the other it was time to go to meet their father and he replied: 'One minute I need to kill them both because they might just grass on us.'
The more seriously injured boy was airlifted to hospital and treated in intensive care. The younger boy, who received numerous injuries, was treated in hospital but was not in danger of dying.
The judge assesses the weight of a rock dropped on the victims
Both brothers were originally charged with attempting to murder the two boys and threatening to kill a third the previous week.
After a deal behind closed doors their guilty pleas to robbery, inciting sexual acts, grievous bodily harm with intent and assault were accepted. In the Commons, David Cameron demanded that the serious case review into the incident should be published in full, rather than just the usual summary, in an attempt to prevent similar attacks in future.
Gordon Brown said the review would not be published in full, to protect the anonymity of the children involved, but added that lessons would be learned.
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