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

362 replies

ElenorRigby · 21/01/2010 19:58

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.

OP posts:
JeremyVile · 21/01/2010 21:27

I feel no compassion for the boys who did this - and actually I'm surprised at myself for that - not one bit, I actually dont care what caused them to be this way. I just cnt see past what they did.

TheShriekingHarpy · 21/01/2010 21:27

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TheShriekingHarpy · 21/01/2010 21:30

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TheFoosa · 21/01/2010 21:32

I have to say, shockingly, I agree with JeremyVile

I would never have thought that before, but this case is just too awful

Lizzylou · 21/01/2010 21:36

TheShriekingHarpy, I think that it has been widely reported that their upbringing was far from ideal and they were in Foster care at the time of the attack.

They learned this behaviour from somewhere, where else other than from their Parents or from being allowed to roam free unchecked?

LynetteScavo · 21/01/2010 21:36

I can't believe competant parents would produce children who could do this.

hbfac · 21/01/2010 21:39

Shrieking Harpy - yes it has.

I think, even at the time of the initial reporting of this attack it was made known that the parents were severely wanting (to put it mildly).

I think that's the dimension that upsets me the most; there is an implicit fear that abuse produces abuse, or at least severe emotional problems.

I really hope, with all my heart, that the children who were attacked receive every help. I really worry that, given the resources of our system, they may not.

I also hope that the boys who perpetrated the attack are given help. I suspect it is one of the horrible ironies of this that the allocation of care may not be directed as much towards the victims as the perpetrators. I read one report that suggested the youngest child is now severely disruptive at school. That is breaking my heart.

ItsGrimUpNorth · 21/01/2010 21:39

"I just cnt see past what they did."

Well, until you do learn some compassion and understanding that people are simply not born this way then it will happen over and over. Guaranteed. Is that what you want?

Compassion doesn't mean absolving of responsibility - as far as children can be responsible, of course. Compassion means wanting to understand and learn from what happened. And wanting it never to happen again.

ItsGrimUpNorth · 21/01/2010 21:40

I don't mean any one person has to learn compassion - I mean everyone. I just don't see how things will change until we start recognising the depravity that some children live with and how it shapes them.

Jimmychasesducks · 21/01/2010 21:42

those poor little lads, I hope some how they are able to get opast thier terrible ordeal and live normally, hopefully they will get lots of support and help.

OttersOnIce · 21/01/2010 21:42

You have to have compassion for the boys that did it.

They have without doubt been badly abused themselves.

Ten/eleven year olds who have been brought up with love and care do not do this kind of thing.

Even those brought up without that much love and care and fairly poor parenting, do not do this.

I would guess they have had what we would think of as quite harrowing lives themselves so far. Including sexual abuse of some kind, given the kind of sexual assualts they inflicted on the two poor boys they attacked.

Hating them, blaming them doesn't get us anywhere. We need to try to understand what has led to this and stop it happening again.

donnie · 21/01/2010 21:45

chegirl - you said it perfectly:

"they do not drop down from the sky, fully formed and ready to kill"

what those boys did was repulsive and hideous, but WTF has gone on in their lives to make them like that? I am torn between revulsion and pity for them.

JeremyVile · 21/01/2010 21:45

Its grim - I get that things, people, life has caused these boys to be what they are. Please dont patronise me.

TheFoosa · 21/01/2010 21:48

I understand that children are not born that way

I had total compassion for the 2 boys in the James Bulger case, but this, I don't know I can't articulate it

notyummy · 21/01/2010 21:48

Please, please read this:

www.guardian.co.uk/society/2010/jan/03/mulberry-bush-sanctuary-traumatised-children

The boys who committed these horrific acts needed a place like this to challenge, support and help them. They were passed around the social care system like parcels instead.

mrswill · 21/01/2010 21:49

On the subject of parental incompetence, it does mention that the boys who committed the violence were in a foster home. So maybe the way they were parented was lacking, or they were uncontrollable.

If this happened to my child, my emotions would cloud it, and frankly Id want these boys dead. Harsh as it sounds, thats the way Id feel.

But being so young, they do deserve a chance at rehabilitation. Although due to the immense lack of any empathy showing from the violence they committed, who knows how successful it would be. Im torn on this topic, as these boys must have suffered a terrible childhood that has taken away normal feelings/behaviour from them. And I feel sadness that 2 other innocent boys had to pay the price and be tortured nearly to death, and it will affect them til they die. Very very sad all round.

ItsGrimUpNorth · 21/01/2010 21:56

"Please dont patronise me."

JeremyVile, sorry if I sounded patronising, but if you "get" that life made these boys so violent and cruel, why don't you have pity for them as you do the victims of their crimes?

What is the difference between them? Surely they are both victims.

Why do you reserve pity for one victim and not the other?

ItsGrimUpNorth · 21/01/2010 21:57

How easy to feel "sickened" and angered by these crimes.

We all do but so what?

It doesn't make any difference to what happens to these poor kids all over the place.

Jimmychasesducks · 21/01/2010 21:58

please can you not tell me that I have to have compassion for these evil monsters, I don't.

Lizzylou · 21/01/2010 21:59

Mrswill, I understand that. If my two boys had been subjected to such an ordeal, I honestly don't believe that I would have an ounce of compassion for the perpetrators, I know I would not.

This level of violence and sexual violence in children so young, is mind boggling, it goes against all we want for our children, how we want to bring them up. I cannot believe that their parents are not culpable, I just can't.

ItsGrimUpNorth · 21/01/2010 21:59

Then you're thick.

And our society deserves to have "evil monsters" in it because we're simply not prepared to do anything about it apart from solely attack the results of our laziness.

donnie · 21/01/2010 22:00

notyummy - that article is just devastating.

chegirlsgotheartburn · 21/01/2010 22:00

Seeking to understand why people do things like this is not the same as excusing what they have done.

Wanting to know what has gone on in a child' life to turn them into a torturer does not mean I dont care about what they have done or think it repulsive.

Having compassion for the perpertrators of this crime does not mean I have none for the victims.

I hate the way violent children are utterly vilified in this country and totally written off.

How would Peter Donally have turned out if he had lived? The outpouring of grief at that little boy's dreadful life and death would have been nothing to the bile and hatred directed at him if his life had followed its (depressingly) natural route and he had ended up inflicting pain on another child.

I am not implying that all children subjected to neglect and abuse turn out to be abusers but I think it is pretty safe to say that the vast majority of children who commit the dreadful acts described have suffered extreme forms of both.

Those children who survive terrible ordeals in their early life tend to because someone, somewhere shows them some love and compassion.

That is why we all have a part to play in helping children in need. Not all children at risk are cute and photogenic.

Lizzylou · 21/01/2010 22:02

Excellent post (again) Chegirl, I completely agree.

ByTheSea · 21/01/2010 22:04

Well said Chegirl!

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