Evil pair 'couldn't care less'

Mr Justice Keith said the 11- and 12-year-old siblings who tortured two young children near Doncaster in one of the most shocking cases in living memory still showed "no empathy at all" for the boys they left both physically and mentally scarred by their sustained violent and sexual attack.

Passing an indeterminate sentence, meaning the two will only be released when they are deemed no longer a threat, the judge told them: "The fact you couldn't care less what happened to your victims is a strong indicator that you harm people simply because you want to.

"Everything I know about the two of you suggests there is at the very least a significant risk – and in my opinion a very high risk – of the two of you committing really violent offences, causing your victims serious harm, unless your problems are properly addressed."

He cited psychiatric reports which said the boys had wanted to control their victims "by domination, degradation and inflicting pain for the purpose of (their) own emotional pleasure."

The older boy, Mr Justice Keith said, "comes across as emotionally detached, desensitised and lacking in empathy". His younger brother had "justified his actions with a degree of righteous indignation" which showed he had "no empathy for the victims at all."

The judge added: "It is this chilling detachment from what the two of you did... that enables me to understand perfectly why the two of you have been assessed as being of serious risk to the public."

Defence lawyers had argued the pair should be given fixed-term penalties, insisting the younger brother's behaviour had already improved dramatically since he was taken into secure care.

But the judge told him: "That, I think, can be explained by the fact you can behave when you want to, and when you think it may be in your interests to do so.

"The bottom line is that I am sure both of you pose a very high risk of serious harm to others."

The judge decided not to lift an order which bans the Press from revealing the brothers' identities, stating it was "questionable" whether this would be in the wider public interest.

In exceptional cases, normal reporting restrictions covering court cases involving children can be lifted to reveal the youngsters' identities, as happened in the case of Jon Venables and Robert Thompson, the boys who killed James Bulger in 1993.

But Mr Justice Keith said doing so in this case could lead to the brothers being "ostracised or harassed" in their secure children's homes and their family being re-housed at public expense, and the pair would then require new identities in the event of their release.

Outside the court, a statement was read out on behalf of the families of the two young victims who were tortured and left for dead by the brothers.

It said: "We have found the last nine months to be an extremely difficult and testing time. Hearing the evidence in court these past three days has also been extremely upsetting for us all. We now want to move on with our lives and for our children to return to some kind of normality."

Police officers involved in the shocking case spoke of

the "devastating" effects the Edlington attack have had on the victims, their families and the whole community.

Det Supt Mick Mason, the senior investigating officer in the case for South Yorkshire Police, said: "This was an extremely violent and unprovoked attack on young, innocent boys who were left with both physical and psychological injuries.

"Thankfully, such incidents are very rare, but when they do occur they have a devastating effect on families and on the community."