WARNING v upsetting: The Doncaster Boys., who were attacked..

[ElenorRigby]

a case from last year...
Here are the details, according a local paper.
Source

Its not pretty

"THE full horror of the terrifying and brutally violent attack on two young boys by a pair of brothers in secluded woodland in Doncaster last April has been revealed to a shocked courtroom.

A hearing at Sheffield Crown Court was yesterday given full and painfully graphic detail of the sadistic 90-minute attack by the then 10 and 11-year-old siblings involving a variety of weapons including branches, barbed wire, lit cigarettes and heavy rocks, which left one of their victims close to death and the other badly injured and deeply traumatised.

Members of the victims' families sobbed as the court was shown haunting video footage taken by the older brother on a stolen mobile phone midway through the attack. It showed his stricken 11-year-old victim shaking and covered in blood as he was prodded and taunted by the younger of the two brothers.

A child psychiatrist who had interviewed the younger brother later described him as "cold and calculating" in his ability to switch between seemingly good behaviour and acts of violence.

Dr Eileen Vizard told the court the boy represented a "high risk" to the public and warned that without prolonged and successful intervention by specialists he may have the potential to develop psychopathy.

The young perpetrators, now aged 11 and 12, were dressed smartly in shirts and ties and sat passively in the dock as their shocking catalogue of violence was laid out before a High Court judge, Mr Justice Keith.

The pair, who cannot be named for legal reasons, had pleaded guilty at an earlier hearing to counts of causing grievous bodily harm with intent, robbery and intentionally causing a child to engage in a sexual act. Charges of attempted murder were dropped.

The court heard how they came across their two young victims at a playground and lured them to a secluded area with the promise of showing them a dead fox.

Once there, the brothers subjected them to a vicious 90-minute attack using branches, sharpened sticks, barbed wire, broken glass, rocks weighing up to two stone, and pieces of metal.

Both victims were repeatedly hit with tree branches and fists as they lay cowering on the ground, the court heard. Their faces were stamped on and heavy rocks dropped on their heads.

At one stage the battered and bloodied victims were forced to attempt to perform sexual acts together.

Later, one was choked with a metal hoop, the older boy putting his foot on his victim's back "for extra leverage", said Nicholas Campbell QC, prosecuting. The younger victim was strangled with a clothes line.

The same victim eventually sustained a deep wound to his arm, which the older brother forced a lit cigarette into. When the terrified nine-year-old said he needed the toilet, he was forced to urinate on his friend's face.

The court heard that as the attack reached its climax, the younger victim was ordered to kill himself. He repeatedly rammed a sharpened stick into his own mouth before slumping against a tree.

His older friend was left for dead after having part of a broken sink dropped on his head. He could not be interviewed by police until 10 days later due to the seriousness of his injuries.

The court also heard details of a strikingly similar attack carried out by the brothers on a choirboy in Edlington a week earlier.

The court was told how he too was lured to the patch of wasteland, this time with the promise of seeing a "massive toad", and how he was beaten and stamped on. The brothers have pleaded guilty to a charge of assault causing actual bodily harm.

On that occasion their 11-year-old victim was apparently saved from an even worse fate by the intervention of a passer-by. The brothers were identified a few days later and were due to attend a police station on the morning of Saturday, April 3.

Instead, they fled their foster home, and within an hour had begun their second savage attack. The pair are due to be sentenced tomorrow.

The hearing continues."

For most parents the details of case of the depravity is beyond belief.

but not all of those people you mention Expat were so young. The article in the indie makes it clear that the success rate for the secure homes (for 10-15yr olds) has a much higher success rate, and that no child murdered released from such an institution has gone on to kill again.

Obviously succsss rate with "turning around" younger children is higher because of their age, but I think it speaks volumes that the "cost" to imprison someone decreases the older they get and the further "up" the prison system they go.....

Tobin was offending from childhood.

He has a record stretching back 45 years and is suspected in a number of other murders, including the 'Bible John' murders.

Ian Brady also offended from childhood.

true expat - but someone how I don't think that child offenders were offered the same rehab back then as they are now.

There may be little chance of rehabilitating these offenders.

Guess it remains to be seen.

having read that article I'd say that there is a reasonably good chance or I would hope there is.

What the Indie article seemed to show was that the good outcomes were associated with highly specialised and very longterm rehabilitation: children who were given the less qualified care of Young Offenders Institutions or who had shorter terms of imprisonment did not show the same reform rates. In other words, just banging children up does not work; you have to be prepared to work with them for year after year and teach them some kind of semblance of family life, because that is the bit they have never learnt.

you know I keep reading this

"the father approached the police officers" and said they weren't responsible for any attack? The more I think about that the more I think he knew what they'd done? Surely they must have had blood on them when he saw them? If that's true surely (Aside from all the abuse that went on home) he must be guilty of perverting the course of justice as well?

The two boys and their families must be locked in a living hell.
I keep looking at DS (9) and I cannot begin to imagine how our family would cope.

The parents should be made to take responsibility too. What their children did was horrific and they should be seriously punished as well sperated from one another permently. They will need a lot of intervention before considering to let them free. Many children live in horrid homes but have not commited these crimes so although circumstances are a factor they should not be an excuse for there behaviour. I really hope focus goes to supporting the victims of this dispicable crime and their family as I really could not imagine what they are going through. The children involved did this for pleasure as they had tried to do this before and amazingly and wrongly got away with it...the poor lads involved, I just hope they can get through to not let what happened to them ruin their futures.

Agree vixma.

I am naive, but then aren't we all as none of us know the true story just what has been reported.

As they had been in trouble before going into foster care they must have had some idea that their home wasn't normal and what was right and wrong - they were going to school after all. I just don't understand how they could have NO idea that they were doing something so wrong.

Maybe I'm being pessimistc and naive but the comments by the judge about them enjoying what they did also makes me wonder whether they can ever be rehabilitated like we would like to believe.

I thought that I believed in redemption and treatment. However, it seems to me that some people are born evil. There are many people in terrible homes but evil of this magnitude happens very rarely.

You can dress it up in psychological terms: psychopathology, inability to empathise etc etc but those are just another way of saying evil, in the same way as a doctor diagnosing tonsilitis when you go in with a sore throat.

I don't want an eye for an eye, a small lethal injection each would be kindest for all concerned.

(by the way, this is Ali's husband, she is kinder than me and currently feeding our baby)

yes, yes you're right - let's execute abused children. what a great solution.

yes stuff of this magnitude happens rarely (thank god) and many people who grow up in homes ilke that don't turn out "bad" - but the majority of children who do commit these crimes HAVE grown up in "toxic" homes.

Lets hope you bring your baby up with a more empathetic, forgiving nature eh??

Have you ever watched an abused child, do you have any idea why they act as they do, have you seen a child shy away from every human adult touch because the only times they were touched were to be beaten or abused - and believe me I see so many of them who have tried to top themselves it is untrue so I suppose a lethal injection would put many of them out of a hell that was not of their making.

Really I am getting angrier and angrier reading stupid posts like yours AliGrylls husband - I bet you have never ever worked in an envoronment where you see the problems caused by bad parenting, you have never ever seen the poort kids and yet you think killing them would be a solution.

AliGryll's husband - i do think you're wrong.

I think, in a way, it's easier to think of these children as evil because it's less painful than thinking about how some children, much like our own children, who we love so much, have been subjected to a profound lack of care and contorted into an appalling form of human behaviour.

We love our children, and realise how vulnerable they are, and how responsive to care. It's terrible to think that children, our children even, and I suppose even ourselves, could be abused so badly that they could end up like the boys here. It makes things seem very fragile.

Maybe the more positive way of thinking about it is to focus on how great it is that most of us care well enough for our children that this doesn't happen. And then extend pity (and even anger) towards those that didn't have that good fortune.

If anyone should be edited out, it's those 'parents' (awaits flames).

Well probably yes but they were most likely victims of similar themselves. How do you break the cycle - any suggestions?

And this fuels the cycle of questions, too: At one point does one stop being a victim and start being fully responsible for their actions?

I don't mean this in a snarky way, but as a serious question, because it's a very important one, IMO, as it's different for every culture and integral to how this sort of situation is dealt with or even if something like this occurs.

I'm glad I read the Independent article as it's the one thing in relation to this case so far that gives me any hope that something can be done with children like this.

At the same time, I am thinking sadly that however worthwhile the secure children's home approach is (and it certainly seems to be) there is no way the victims of this attack are going to get anything near 200K a year spent on them.

expat I think your question's a very good one. Isn't the age of criminal responsibility set at 10 for precisely that reason - at that age we expect people to be able to understand and take responsibility for their actions?

the age of criminal responsibility is indeed set to 10 but it's a contentious subject I think.

A child of 10 is considered too young to be able to choose to have sex, have a tattoo, vote, get married, or drive car. Yet they are considered old enough to be fully responsibl for their crimes.

We actually have one of the lowest ages of criminal responsibility in Europe

article about it here

Think of the (often heated) debates on here about the things that we deem 10yrs old (or not) of doing, being left alone, going to the shops, cooking, ironing, etc etc etc - some say they're too young, not responbile enough, others say that it's more than old enough.

Personall I think it's a bit of a joke that you can get married at 16 (with your parents consent), drive a potentially deadly lump of metal at 17, but can't drink or vote until you're 18..........but are responsible for you actions re crime at 10 but I guess that's a whole different thread.

Obviously, having a tattoo doesn't ruin FOREVER the lives of other people who had no care on the world about them having tattoos.

I guess that if the government want to spend millions rehabilitating these monsters is ok. As long as they are willing to spend as much rehabilitiating the lives of their victims.

where I did I say it would ruin their lives? getting married (generally speaking), learning to drive, drinking alcohol (moderately) and voting don't ruin lives either.

But they are things which 10yr olds are not considered old enough, mature enough etc etc to be able to make decisions about for themselves.

Sorry, just wanted to add to my previous point about why an abused child might go on to commit a crime, while their siblings may not even though they are born of the same parents. Again, it is not because that child was born bad. Its well documented that within abusive families there is a child (usually one, sometimes more) who is designated the role of scapegoat. That means the abusive parent channels all their rage and abuse (including sexual abuse) onto one child. Sometimes, even in the most abusive families (especially in the most abusive families), one child becomes the "golden child", the child who can do no wrong and is given special treatment. The golden child can be treated relatively normally by the parents, apart from all the abuse of their siblings that they witness.

I also want to make a point about a child who may commit a henious crime who has come from a normal family. Although a situation like this is rare, I do want to say that sometimes abusive families are very good at putting on a face of being a normal family. How many "pillar of the community" type men were revealed to have been secretly sexually abusing their daughters, the wife hiding his abuse because she wants to keep up the pretense of being a perfect family. Somtimes its in the abusers' best interest to put up a good show. So I just want to say that examples of children who came from "good" backgrounds also mean nothing to me. IN American news, I've noticed that good background=churchgoing. Its so strange to me that some people believe that because a family is churchgoing or middle class, or whatever, that the parents are "good".

expat, in answer to your question about how one stops the cycle. What the adult has to do is accept that what happened to them as a child was wrong. This means accepting that their parents didn't love them in the way they were supposed to. BUt tHis is near-on impossible for most adults, who will do anything to cling on to the belief that they were loved, even if this means sacrificing their own children to the same fate by behaving in exactly the same way. The "it never did me any harm" line. Some^ adults do break out of it, though. The question is, how to get more adults to understand that what happened to them is wrong.
I think laws are helpful. We have the smacking law now in the UK, although I know of many people who still believe smacking is ok (because they were smacked) but at least they have to accept that society at large does not believe smacking is ok, and this might make them reflect a bit more on their behaviour. Again, more funding for families, social services is the only answer I can think of
I definitely agree with the poster who said that this is a feminist issue. The phenomenal task of parenting has to be taken more seriously. Motherhood and parenting is sort of seen as a hobby or a lifestyle choice or something that women do "messing around with babies". MOthers have to be taken more seriously. WE know the media is anti-mothers by the way it reacts to mumsnet when politicians come on here. I just get the feeling that in the media there are so many other important things to be thinking about than babies and children. Perhaps its going to have to be women's job to show people that raising children is not an add-on to society, its the crux.