Young brothers admit attack on boys

Two young brothers who lured two boys, aged nine and 11, to a South Yorkshire ravine before attacking them with bricks have admitted the assault.

At Sheffield Crown Court, the brothers, aged 10 and 11 at the time, pleaded guilty to causing grievous bodily harm.

The victims first met their attackers as they played football in a park.

The boys were lured away by the brothers, who promised they would show them a toad they had found, but instead they were subjected to a horrific assault.

One of the boys had a sink dropped on his head, the pair had bricks thrown at them and they were repeatedly stamped on.

The nine-year-old managed to stagger to a nearby house to raise the alarm, covered in blood from wounds to his head and arm.

The 11-year-old boy was later discovered unconscious in the nearby wood.

A woman who first saw the younger child said she would be forever haunted by the image of his bloodied face.

Jean Wright said her 40-year-old son, who then found the badly beaten 11-year-old, was left so traumatised he could no longer walk past the scene of the attacks.

The brothers have each pleaded guilty to robbing one of the boys of a mobile phone and the other of cash.

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

Both injured boys have since been released from hospital following their ordeal.

The brothers were later charged with attempted grievous bodily harm with intent and making a threat to kill in connection with a separate attack on another 11-year-old boy in Doncaster a week earlier.

The court heard the brothers picked a "discreet" location for the scene of their first attack on the other boy, in trees, by a stream.

But they were interrupted by a passer-by, and a week later chose a "more isolated" place for the attack on the two boys.

The nine-year-old and 11-year-old were led to a large mound of timber, described as a "den", which was hidden from public view, where some of their injuries were inflicted.

The brothers then moved their victims to a second site, at the foot of a 15ft ravine. It was here that a broken sink was used to inflict the more serious head injuries on the 11-year-old.

The prosecutor said on the day of the second attack, the two brothers should have been at the police station being questioned about the earlier assault.

He said: "Instead, they went out and attacked [the two boys]."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/south_yorkshire/8233822.stm

Boys' mother 'fed them cannabis'

A relative of the boys who carried out the Edlington attacks has told how their mother would lace their food with cannabis to get them to go to sleep.

She recalled how the brothers grew up in a chaotic household watching horror movies from a young age.

The boys would often be up all night and had even set fire to their own wardrobes in their bedrooms, she said.

"You just knew one day they'd really hurt someone and that is exactly what they've done," she told the BBC.

"My friend said she had walked into the house one day and was totally disgusted because she had caught her putting cannabis on a chocolate cake."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/south_yorkshire/8235661.stm

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that's scary..