Sadistic attack had origins in 'toxic' home life

Seats normally reserved for the parents of young children accused of serious crime remained glaringly vacant throughout the harrowing three-day hearing at Sheffield Crown Court, just one more illustration of the "disastrous" home life from which the brothers have emerged.

Police have said they will consider pressing charges against members of their family in light of the shocking evidence given during the sentencing.

Sitting quietly in shirts and ties throughout the hearing, sometimes fidgeting and stretching as little boys of 11 and 12 are wont to do, they looked more like ordinary schoolboys than abusers, capable of frightening and sadistic torture.

But it was telling that the impassive younger brother was finally reduced to tears on Thursday, not by the sickening descriptions of the crimes he had committed, but as the court heard details of what he and his brother had suffered at the hands of their own family members.

For people living nearby on the Doncaster estate where they grew up, the grim reality has long been apparent.

Neighbours have spoken of how the 36-year-old mother, with seven sons aged seven to 18, had a long-standing cannabis habit which meant her children "didn't stand a chance".

But Peter Kelson QC said: "Mum did not drink – it was Dad who got drunk. The kids would shout and scream at Dad to try and stop him hitting her, but if the kids intervened in this way it made Dad worse. He would scream and shout and hurt her more.

"He would hit all the children. He would hit them with a slipper, any time, anywhere. He would throw things at them. He would throw ashtrays at their heads."

The court heard of the violent and pornographic films the brothers had been shown, of how the older boy had smoked drugs and drunk vodka since the age of the nine, of further violence perpetrated by an older brother who was himself taken into custody not long before the attacks took place.

The judge, Mr Justice Keith, told the pair yesterday: "You never had guidance at home about the way you should behave. You come from a dysfunctional family, where the environment has been described as 'toxic' and the adults were hardly role models.

"There was an atmosphere of violence at home. You were never taught what the proper boundaries were, and your bad behaviour was never confronted within the family."

Bitter testimonies from neighbours of the pair's increasingly chaotic and violent behaviour have already been splashed across countless newspaper pages. Windows were smashed, possessions stolen and sometimes burnt, children and adults alike attacked. A woman was punched as she walked with her family, a teacher head-butted in the face.

Finally, early last year, their mother called social services to say she could not cope.

It was then Doncaster Council moved them to Edlington, the village where their father lived, leaving them in the care of two elderly foster parents.

Within weeks, such hideous crimes had been committed against young children in that community that they will surely never be forgotten.