'A very high risk to others' - Five year minimum for sadist brothers who tortured two young boys

The attacks that shocked Britain: Full coverage

Mr Justice Keith told the pair, who are aged 11 and 12: "The fact is this was prolonged, sadistic violence for no reason other than that you got a real kick out of hurting and humiliating them."

The judge said: "The bottom line for the two of you is that I'm sure you both pose a very high risk of serious harm to others."

The judge told the brothers: "Your crimes are truly exceptional."

In full: What the judge said

Sentencing them at Sheffield Crown Court, he told them they would serve a minimum of five years.

The judge had spent two days listening to harrowing accounts of how the boys, then aged 10 and 11, lured their victims to a secluded spot and subjected them to 90 minutes of violence and sexual humiliation in Edlington, South Yorkshire, in April last year.

The victims were strangled, hit with bricks, made to eat nettles, stripped and forced to sexually abuse each other.

The brothers showed no emotion as the sentences were passed.

As they were led out of court, the mother of their younger victim banged on a dividing screen in the courtroom and shouted: "You evil little bastards."

The brothers admitted causing their victims grievous bodily harm with intent.

They had denied a more serious charge of attempted murder and the prosecution accepted their pleas so there was no trial.

Both pleaded guilty to robbing one of the boys of a mobile phone and the other of cash.

They admitted two counts of intentionally causing a child to engage in sexual activity.

The brothers also admitted causing another 11-year-old actual bodily harm a week before the young boys were attacked.

Mr Justice Keith told the boys: "Neither of you need me to tell you how shocking your attack upon (the first 11-year-old boy) was and how appalling and terrible your treatment of (the two other boys) was."

The judge outlined the violence used by the boys in both the main attack on the two boys and the first attack.

He said he would not go into detail about the attack on the two young boys but added: "What it amounted to was torture."

Speaking about the sexual offences committed by the two defendants, the judge said: "I don't think that you got a sexual thrill out of any of that in the same way that robbing them of (the older boy's) pocket money and (the younger boy's) mobile wasn't about gain.

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

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

Speaking about the effect the attack had had on the victims, Mr Justice Keith said: "Their physical and emotional scars will live with them for a 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 didn't begin to deserve about whether they could have done more to protect their boys."

The judge heard yesterday how the boys watched ultra-violent movies as part of a "toxic home life" of "routine aggression, violence and chaos".

One of the boys watched the gruesome Saw movies when he was as young as 10 and was also familiar with the Chucky films as well as pornography DVDs.

He also smoked cannabis from the age of nine and drank cider.

Peter Kelson QC, representing the elder brother, described how the boys' mother told psychiatrists about years of domestic violence perpetrated by the boys' father on her and her five sons.

Mr Kelson described one incident when her partner said he would "take a knife to her and slice her face to bits".

He added: "These threats were made in front of the children."

The judge said today that pre-sentence and psychiatric reports compiled about the two defendants made "grim reading".

Speaking about their content, he said: "You chose your victims because of their vulnerability and you wanted to assert your dominance over them by (in the older brother's case) 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.

"(In the case of the younger brother) a wish to control your victims by domination, degradation and inflicting pain for the purpose of your own emotional pleasure."

The judge continued: "The fact that you couldn't care less what happened to (the two boys) was a strong indicator you harm people simply because you want to."

He said the brothers had already shown a "worrying pattern" of offending and bad behaviour.

Mr Justice Keith said the risk of harm posed by the two boys was so high that he could not impose determinate sentences.

The families of the young victims issued a statement through South Yorkshire Police which said they had found the evidence "deeply upsetting".

They said the events of April last year "rocked our lives".

"We have found the last nine months to have been an extremely difficult and testing time," the statement said.

"Hearing the evidence in court during these past three days has also been deeply upsetting for us all.

"However we would like to thank everyone involved in providing support to us during this time."

The families said they wanted to thank "the people of Edlington" who assisted police in the search.

They also thanked the ambulance and air ambulance teams.

The statement ended with an appeal for privacy.

The judge spoke of criticisms about the involvement of social services with the boys and their "dysfunctional" family.

He said: "It's not for me to apportion blame but I do know criticism has been levelled against social services and child protection agencies for not intervening earlier."

Speaking to the brothers about their background, he added: "You never had any 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."

He continued: "You were never taught what the proper boundaries were, your bad behaviour was never confronted in the family."

Mr Justice Keith handed the boys concurrent sentences on all the charges they admitted.

For causing the two boys grievous bodily harm with intent, they were sentenced to detention for public protection with a minimum term of five years.

They were each handed 24 months' detention for the offences of causing a child to engage in sexual activity and 18 months' detention for the offences of robbery against the two boys.

For the offence of assault occasioning actual bodily harm on the first 11-year-old boy in March last year, they were each sentenced to 30 months' detention.

They were each placed on the sex offenders register for a period of three and a half years but the judge said the case was not appropriate to make any sexual offences prevention orders.

After the two defendants had been removed from the court, the judge addressed the families of the victims.

He said: "I want them to know that I've taken into account the devastating effect that all of this has had on their lives and the lives of their boys.

"I have no doubt that they would have preferred to see (the two brothers) locked up for very much longer and I know that nothing can compare to the trauma the boys went through but I hope they will appreciate that five years is the very least (the brothers) will serve. They may well be in detention for much longer than that."