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News

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:
hbfac · 21/01/2010 22:07

Grimupnorth - Come on, "deserves" is a bit harsh. Though I think your point that this is a problem we, as a society, should assign more, real, care to, is right.

Notyummy - I looked at your link. I looked at the cost (£130,000 p/a) and it just struck me how grim it is. That's the cost for rehabilitation that may, or may not work. Which is, i guess, why the standard care provision is so inadequate. No way do we allocate that sort of money, per child, to the care system.

That is part of why so many children are left with inadequate parents.

I do wish that we, as a society, cared a bit more about vulnerable children.

And I include the children who've been attacked in that. I keep returning to the worry that they won't get enough help to get over this.

paisleyleaf · 21/01/2010 22:07

It makes me rethink my own perception of stranger danger.

MadamDeathstare · 21/01/2010 22:09

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

FishInMyHair · 21/01/2010 22:10
Sad
ItsGrimUpNorth · 21/01/2010 22:12

If we're not prepared to look out for our young people, care for them, protect them and teach them the right way, then yes, I think we do deserve what we get.

Not that those innocent boys deserved it but I can't see how we can expect anything else when there are children out there who are abused, hurt and deprived of a normal life and nothing is done about it.

It's a complacency that is shocked alert every few years and then a complacency that returns very quickly because of course it's no one else's fault but the child who did the terrible crime.

It's all bull to say how horrified you are and how you have willingness to even begin to understand how it could have happened because that means you don't really care enough to stop it happening again. The only way to stop it happening again is to stop the abuse of young people. Very simple.

The kind of comments on this thread make me so because they are lazy and refuse to go beyond simplistic and moronic vengeance.

CurlyhairedAssassin · 21/01/2010 22:13

It's so very sad. I feel heartbroken for the victims but also depressed at the thought of what life the perpetrators must have had to make them behave like that. The thought that depresses me most is that for these 2 boys, they are in a small minority of children who have had such a horrific upbringing from the day they were born that their emotional development and their brain development generally has virtually been ruined for ever - I think they will never now be "normal", not matter how much rehabilitation is given to them. Maybe if they had had much better outside help at a much earlier age they would have stood a chance at a more normal life. But I feel they are lost causes now. It is too late.

Not that I'm an expert or anything, I've just read a few things on attachment disorder and trauma and neglect in early childhood.

JeremyVile · 21/01/2010 22:13

Oh god, itsgrim - Yes, you're right!
I have argued from your pov many times, including about the James Bulger case - I dont need to be persuaded.

But at this moment, reading those details I cant feel anything for them. Nothing. And nor do I need to, I'm not involved in deciding their fate.

I cant see past what they did - that pretty much sums it up.

I'm not baying for their blood or ignorant to how we, as a society, fuck up some children - I just cant think past what they did. Ok?

My post expresses how I feel if I were up for picking this all apart intellectually, I'd be saying the same as you. But I'm not....so I'm not.

Jimmychasesducks · 21/01/2010 22:14

so if someone doesn't aggree with you they are thick and lazy?
surely what these two $$$ did when bored was so horrific, they have to be punished?

ItsGrimUpNorth · 21/01/2010 22:15

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Message withdrawn

hbfac · 21/01/2010 22:16

MadameDeathstare - I know what you mean. I find that things like this leave me wanting to do something - but what?

Chegirl - You put that very well.

MollieO · 21/01/2010 22:18

Do you mean Peter Connelly chegirl (Baby P)?

I read notyummy's Guardian article. It is horrific to think that the children at that school are the lucky ones. They have been given a chance of rehabilitation and change. I worry about the others who aren't so 'lucky'. Particularly upsetting was Stan's story and to think that what happened to him in his first 3 years of life made him virtually uncontrollable - 73 foster families and he is only 7. I can't begin to imagine what he has been through.

Children learn by mimicking their parents' behaviour. Life didn't make these boys do what they did, their treatment at the hands of their parents did.

Jimmychasesducks · 21/01/2010 22:18

ItsGrimUpNorth I will ignore your personal attack(have repoted it) I knew this is the way mn would react to this, even said so to dh, so no suprise.

MadamDeathstare · 21/01/2010 22:20

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

rasputin · 21/01/2010 22:20

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

CurlyhairedAssassin · 21/01/2010 22:22

Well, what is the answer? If these cases are still happening and nothing has been learnt in 15 years since James Bulger was killed, then isn't it about time we put the parents in the dock and investigate THEM at the same time as their children are investigated for committing the crime? Or do the parents turn round and just blame the inadequacies of social services to try and wriggle out of any blame on their part?

hbfac · 21/01/2010 22:23

Madame Deathstare - If you do want to know about the two (three, actually) boys who were attacked, it's available on the internet.

But i would suggest you don't. I did. I wish I hadn't.

does anyone know who is responsible for the ongoing care of the two boys who were attacked? Would it be Doncaster SS, or health services?

ItsGrimUpNorth · 21/01/2010 22:24

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn

MollieO · 21/01/2010 22:33

I assume it is Doncaster SS. Newsnight had an interesting and depressing piece last night about how completely incompetent Doncaster SS is. They tried to get a 150 report suppressed and issue a 30 page report instead. Newsnight went to court and got it published in full.

Awassailinglookingforanswers · 21/01/2010 22:33

good god I can't believe this thread (well Ican actually ) has descended into name calling.

I have enormous pity and compassion for both the victims of the attack, and the perpertrators.

That doesn't mean I feel the need to call those, who don't "get" (or whatever the phrase was that was used) the compassion names .

chegirlsgotheartburn · 21/01/2010 22:35

Yes sorry Mollie I did mean Peter Connelly. Slip of the keyboard

'I knew this is the way MN would react to this'

Why so Jimmy. Are we all the same on MNs then? One big lump of hemogenous opinion?

Hardly. But dismissing our opinions in this way means you must be right. Hang the fuckers and society will all lovely like in the 60s (oops apart from Mary Bell of course).

Awassailinglookingforanswers · 21/01/2010 22:36

what "way" has MN reacted to this?

I see more than one opinion on this thread (and in the original thread irrc when the story first appeared in the news)

ItsGrimUpNorth · 21/01/2010 22:39

Well, in the "way" that we don't all react in a knee jerk way, condemning children as evil for no reason other than just being born evil.

For having some intelligence to see beyond the headlines and hope for change instead of the stupid "swing on their legs" mentality.

hbfac · 21/01/2010 22:41

MollieO - I was worried about that. Utterly worrying that the same service that failed with preventing the attack is now in charge of looking after the children who have been injured.

JeremyVile · 21/01/2010 22:45

Itsgrim - I admire your sentiments but how about just letting people express how they feel?
It doesn't have to be a fight.

Awassailinglookingforanswers · 21/01/2010 22:45

well I gues I'm reading a different thread from you then ItsGrim - as the one I'm posting on right now isn't full of just one opinion

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