A week earlier, a choirboy victim of the Edlington brothers is saved by a passer-by

The attacks that shocked Britain: Full coverage

It was an image that no-one present in the Sheffield courtroom yesterday is ever likely to forget.

The nightmarish 20-second video shown to Sheffield Crown Court was taken mid-way through the sickening attack by the two young brothers on their equally young victims in Edlington, an incident which now looks likely to be forever associated with the former mining village near Doncaster

The boys responsible, however, were not products of that community. The court heard yesterday how they were moved there last March, placed into foster care with an elderly couple by Doncaster Council.

Less than three weeks later, on the afternoon of Saturday, March 28, the brothers carried out their first attack.

Their unfortunate victim, an 11-year-old choirboy, was on his way to a friend's house, a football tucked beneath his arm. The court heard how the two brothers approached him in the street, hoods pulled firmly over their heads, and offered to show him a "massive toad" in a nearby stream. The boy remembers one of the brothers giving him a chocolate mouse to eat. They were, in his words, "being right nice", said Nicholas Campbell QC, prosecuting.

But once the trio reached the secluded area known as Brickyards, everything changed.

The 11-year-old was thrown into a stream and his face stamped on. He was then dragged to his feet and held by one brother while the other repeatedly punched him in the face.

Mr Campbell said the pair forced their victim to give them his grandmother's address, telling him they were going to kill her.

Chillingly, the older brother then asked his younger sibling to go and find a brick.

The court was told how the boy said: "I'm gonna smash it across his head…Just get a brick and we'll end it."

It was at that stage a passing fisherman intervened, and the battered and soaking wet victim managed to escape.

The brothers later "bragged" about the attack to another child and the police were informed of their identities, Mr Campbell said. A formal police interview was arranged.

But that following Saturday - April 3 – the brothers fled their foster home at the very time they were supposed to be heading for the police station.

Their modus operandi seemingly now set, the pair headed for a local recreation ground and approached their next two victims, two boys aged nine and 11, this time offering to show them a dead fox.

As soon as the four were out of sight, the brothers began their second attack – and this time there would be no passer-by to intervene.

"What happened (to the two victims) between 11.30am and 1pm that Saturday was both physically painful and emotionally traumatic, " said Mr Campbell. "It was frightening… humiliating and embarrassing."

The brothers told the boys they were going to kill them and threw them to the ground, punching the older friend when he tried to kick out.

"Shards of glass from a broken beer bottle were held against their throats and scratched along the flesh, " Mr Campbell said.

The young victims were told their families and the younger boy's dog would be killed if they didn't keep quiet, the court heard, before the brothers marched the pair further into the secluded woodland.

Hidden away at the bottom of a slope, the attack grew ever more serious.

The two boys were beaten badly as they lay on the ground with a variety of branches and rocks. Their faces and genitals were stamped on repeatedly, the court was told. The judge, Mr Justice Keith, was yesterday shown several of the weapons used, including a huge rock weighing 12kg and a hefty branch.

When passers-by approached at the top of the hill, the brothers hid their victims under a plastic sheet.

The brothers then marched their bloodied victims to a still more secluded area for the final stage of the attack.

As the attack reached its climax with a heavy piece of ceramic sink dropped on the head of the 11 year old victim, by that time laid on the ground, the younger brother was watching and laughing.

As the pair left, the older boy threw some final rocks at the injured boys and told his brother: "I need to kill them both because they just might grass on us."