In full: What the judge told sadistic Edlington brothers

The attacks that shocked Britain: Full coverage

Here is the full text of his comments, with the two defendants referred to as A and B and their three victims referred to as C, D and E. Main story

"The two of you know that you are going away for a very long time for boys of your age.

"I've got a lot to say to you, and I'll try to put it as simply as I can. It may be that you won't understand everything I say, but it will be explained to you later by your lawyers or social workers.

"Neither of you need me to tell you how shocking your attack on C was and how appalling and terrible your treatment of D and E was.

"You, B, were responsible for most of the violence on C. You stamped on his face when he was on the ground, and you punched him in the face a number of times.

"But you, A, punched him in the stomach, and you were holding him so that B could punch him, though you were eventually to tell B that it had to stop.

"I haven't been told why C had his pants round his ankles, because C can't bring himself to talk about it, but it is obvious that you were intending to humiliate him in some way. Your attack on him has left him emotionally scarred.

"But what you did to C doesn't begin to compare with what you did to D and E. As with C, you lured them to an isolated spot.

"You, A, took what was left of D's pocket money, and you, B, took E's mobile. I'm not going to spell out everything you did then - that would take too long - but what it amounted to was torture. They were cut with broken glass.

"Their genitals - that's their private parts - were kicked. Really heavy stones were thrown at their heads or dropped on them. They were whipped with sticks and branches.

"And they were gagged to stop them screaming. You, A, tried to strangle D with a metal hoop, putting your foot on his back for leverage, and E was then burned with a cigarette.

"They were forced to undress, and covered with a plastic sheet which was then set alight. At one stage, D had to 'bum' E. Fortunately, E doesn't think D succeeded, but they had to 'snog', and when E said he needed to pee, he was told to do it into D's mouth.

"E managed to avoid doing that, though his wee went down the side of D's face.

"I don't think you got a sexual thrill out of any of that, in the same way that robbing them of D's pocket money and E's mobile wasn't about gain.

"It was all part of the torture and humiliation which you wanted to subject them to.

"Indeed, by recording parts of what you did on a mobile, you made at least some of this an example of 'happy slapping'.

"Then having frogmarched them to another isolated spot, you tried to strangle E this time, you forced both of them into a stream, and although E got to the other side and pretended he had killed himself by shoving a twig into his mouth, D crawled back to your side of the stream, where you, A, threw part of a discarded sink at his head.

"Although there is some evidence that you were intending to kill them, the prosecution has accepted your pleas of not guilty to attempted murder, and I therefore must assume that you didn't intend to kill them.

"But you told the police that you thought that you had come close to killing D, and the fact is that this was prolonged, sadistic violence for no reason other than that you got a real kick out of hurting and humiliating them.

"Their physical and emotional scars will live with them for a very long time to come.

"Their relationship with each other has been seriously affected, and their parents have been left with a strong sense of guilt - which they don't begin to deserve - about whether they could have done anything more to protect their boys.

"The first thing I have to decide is whether there is a significant risk of you committing what we lawyers call specified offences in the future, and a significant risk of those offences causing serious harm to people.

"In one sense, what you did speaks for itself. The fact that you couldn't care less what happened to D and E is itself a strong indicator that you harm people simply because you want to.

"Everything I know about the two of you suggests that 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 with the help of professionals.

"You had already shown, despite your age, a worrying pattern of offending and bad behaviour. Your convictions, A - as well as the reprimand and warning you received - were for your violent behaviour towards children and grown-ups alike.

"The reprimand you got, B, when you punched one of your teachers - a 50-year-old woman - and head-butted another was itself a serious incident.

"But most important of all is what the reports prepared on the two of you tell me about why you say you behaved as you did, and what the reports tell me about you. I'm going to be using longer words now because I'll be quoting from those reports.

"You chose your victims because of their vulnerability, and you wanted to assert your dominance over them by what the author of the pre-sentence report on you, A, called 'the use of aggression, extreme violence and sexual degradation targeted to inflict maximum pain ... in order to gain a sense of power and control' over their lives, and by what the author of the pre-sentence report on you, B, called a wish to control your victims 'by domination, degradation and inflicting pain for the purpose of (your] own emotional pleasure'.

"You, A, came across to the author of the pre-sentence report as someone who was 'emotionally detached, desensitised and lacking in empathy towards your victims', and you, B, were said to justify your actions 'with a degree of righteous indignation' which showed that you had no empathy for your victims at all.

"You have expressed views towards your victims which, in the opinion of the author of the pre-sentence report on you, prepared on you as recently as December 11, reflected 'an intense rage' on your part.

"It is this chilling detachment from what the two of you did, coupled with, in your case, B, your anger and your attempts to justify your behaviour, which enable me to understand perfectly why the two of you have been assessed in the pre-sentence reports as posing a risk of serious harm to members of the public - a very high risk in your case, A, and a serious risk in yours, B.

"The conclusions in the very full pre-sentence reports are mirrored by the psychiatric assessments on you which I have also been provided with.

"They make grim reading. I know that positive things are said about you, A, by the manager of the secure unit in which you are being held, and that suggests that the time may eventually come when you are safe enough to be released.

"But Professor Bailey says that, when it comes to assessing the risks which you currently pose, you scored high when she looked at the things you'd done, and at the moment there is little which can be seen in your profile which might inhibit you."