Edlington attacks

Last updated

Edlington attacks
Location Edlington, South Yorkshire, England
Date9 April 2009 (2009-04-09)
Attack type
 Child abduction
Injured2
VerdictGuilty
Charges Attempted murder, robbery

On 4 April 2009, an abduction and torture of two young boys by two young brothers in Edlington, South Yorkshire, England. An 11-year-old boy was found with critical head injuries at a ravine in a rural area of Edlington, while his nine-year-old nephew was found wandering nearby covered in blood. [1] [2]

On Tuesday, 7 April, two brothers, aged 10 and 11, who had been arrested on Sunday, 5 April, were each initially charged with the attempted murder and robbery of both of the injured boys. [3] [4] They appeared at Sheffield Crown Court, where a hearing revealed the extent of their actions. They had led the two boys to an isolated wasteland where one was forced to strip naked and perform a sex act. A metal ring was used to strangle the other. The brothers collected stones and bricks which were thrown at the boys' heads. When alerted by the sound of passers-by, the suspects covered the two boys with a sheet, which they then set afire, inflicting burns on the victims. One brother had filmed part of the attack on his mobile phone, which was used as evidence in court. [5]

The two suspects pleaded guilty to causing grievous bodily harm with intent, to robbing one of the boys of a mobile phone and the other of cash, to two counts of intentionally causing a child to engage in sexual activity, and to one additional charge of actual bodily harm relating to a previous incident involving another 11-year-old boy. A child protection expert, Eileen Vizard, who had been involved in the James Bulger case, told the sentencing judge that the younger brother was a "very high risk" to the community and was at risk of becoming "a seriously disturbed psychopathic offender" unless he was properly treated. [5]

The brothers were given indeterminate sentences on 23 January 2010. The judge in the case, Mr Justice Keith, ordered that under Section 39 of the Children and Young Persons Act 1933 their identities should not be disclosed. [6] A request to appeal against the sentence was refused by the Criminal Division of the Court of Appeal on 5 May 2010. [7]

In December 2016, the perpetrators were granted legal lifelong anonymity on the grounds that they would be "at serious risk of attack" if their identities became known. [8]

In August 2017, shortly after release, the younger of the brothers was returned to prison indefinitely after breaching the terms of his parole; he was found in possession of a machete. [9]

Related Research Articles

Criminal transmission of HIV is the intentional or reckless infection of a person with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). This is often conflated, in laws and in discussion, with criminal exposure to HIV, which does not require the transmission of the virus and often, as in the cases of spitting and biting, does not include a realistic means of transmission. Some countries or jurisdictions, including some areas of the U.S., have enacted laws expressly to criminalize HIV transmission or exposure, charging those accused with criminal transmission of HIV. Other countries charge the accused under existing laws with such crimes as murder, manslaughter, attempted murder, assault or fraud.

Happy slapping was a fad originating in the United Kingdom around 2005, in which one or more people attack a victim for the purpose of recording the assault. Though the term usually refers to relatively minor acts of violence such as hitting or slapping the victim, more serious crimes such as the manslaughter of a retired care worker, and sexual assault have been classified as "happy slapping" by the BBC.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Death of Abdul Wali</span> Afghan man killed in United States custody in 2003

Abdul Wali was an Afghan farmer who died in United States custody on June 21, 2003, at the age of 28. At the time of his death, he had been held for three days at the US base 10 miles (16 km) south of Asadabad, in Kunar Province, Afghanistan, on suspicion of involvement in a rocket attack on the same base, after voluntarily handing himself in. The local governor, Said Akbar, had told Wali to turn himself in so he could clear his name.

Dakota Abberton, an Australian surfer, is a member of the Australian surf gang the Bra Boys. Together with his brothers, Koby, Jai, and Sunny, Dakota Abberton achieved national and international attention in 2007 with the release of a feature-length documentary entitled Bra Boys: Blood is Thicker than Water, that was written and directed by the Bra Boys.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Murder of Sophie Lancaster</span> 2007 murder case in the United Kingdom

The murder of Sophie Lancaster occurred in England in August 2007. The victim and her boyfriend, Robert Maltby, were attacked by a group of teenage boys while walking through Stubbylee Park in Bacup, Rossendale, Lancashire, on 11 August 2007. As a result of the severe head injuries Lancaster sustained in the attack, she went into a coma from which she never regained consciousness, and died of her injuries thirteen days later. The police said the attack may have been linked to the couple wearing gothic fashion and being members of the goth subculture.

Catholic sexual abuse cases in Australia, like Catholic Church sexual abuse cases elsewhere, have involved convictions, trials and ongoing investigations into allegations of sex crimes committed by Catholic priests, members of religious orders and other personnel which have come to light in recent decades, along with the growing awareness of sexual abuse within other religious and secular institutions.

The Tottenham Mandem were an organised street gang based in Tottenham, North London, that began on the Broadwater Farm estate prior to the Broadwater Farm riot in 1985. One of the early members and later leader Mark Lambie was a suspect in the murder of PC Keith Blakelock during that riot. Lambie had been top of Operation Trident's wanted list due to the close links he had built with gangs in Wembley, Harlesden and south London. He was jailed in 2002. During the 90s, TMD was one of the largest gangs in North London and controlled much of the drug markets in the area.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Chongqing gang trials</span> Campaign against organized crime in China

The Chongqing gang trials were a series of triad-busting trials in the city of Chongqing that began in October 2009 and concluded in 2011. Carried out under the auspices of municipal Communist Party chief Bo Xilai and police chief Wang Lijun, a total of 4,781 suspects were arrested, including 19 suspected crime bosses, hundreds of triad members, and a number of allegedly corrupt police, government and Communist party officials, including six district police chiefs and the city's former deputy police commissioner, Wen Qiang. Time described it as "China's trial of the 21st century". The crackdown is believed to be the largest of its kind in the history of the People's Republic of China. Concerns over due process surfaced following the trial, including allegations of torture, forced confessions, and intimidation.

The D.C. Five is a group of Muslim Americans from the suburbs of Washington, D.C., with suspected ties to terrorism. The five men were detained on December 9, 2009, during a police raid in Pakistan on a house with links to a militant group. In part of an increasing trend in homegrown terrorism, they were in their late teens or early twenties.

Sidney Charles Cooke is an English convicted child molester and suspected serial killer serving two life sentences. He was the leader of a paedophile ring suspected of murdering up to twenty young boys in the 1970s and 1980s. Cooke and other members of the ring were convicted of three killings in total, although he was only convicted of one himself.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Murder of James Bulger</span> 1993 child murder in Liverpool, England

James Patrick Bulger was a two-year-old boy from Kirkby, Merseyside, England, who was abducted, tortured, and murdered by two 10-year-old boys, Robert Thompson and Jon Venables, on 12 February 1993. Thompson and Venables led Bulger away from the New Strand Shopping Centre in Bootle, after his mother had taken her eyes off him momentarily. His mutilated body was found on a railway line two and a half miles away in Walton, Liverpool, two days after his abduction.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">2011 Helmand Province killing</span> Manslaughter of a wounded Taliban insurgent by Alexander Blackman

The 2011 Helmand Province killing was the manslaughter of a wounded Taliban insurgent by Alexander Blackman, which occurred on 15 September 2011. Three Royal Marines, known during their trial as Marines A, B, and C, were anonymously tried by court martial. On 8 November 2013, Marines B and C were acquitted, but Blackman was initially found guilty of murder of the Afghan insurgent, in contravention of section 42 of the Armed Forces Act 2006. This made him the first British soldier to be convicted of a battlefield murder whilst serving abroad since the Second World War.

Aamir Siddiqi was a boy from Cardiff, South Wales. In April 2010, at the age of 17, Siddiqi was killed in his family's home in the Roath area of Cardiff. On 1 February 2013 Jason Richards, 38, and Ben Hope, 39, were convicted of his murder; they had intended to kill a different man. Later that month they were both sentenced to life imprisonment, and ordered to serve a minimum of 40 years.

On the night of 8–9 December 2014, 39-year-old Angela Wrightson was beaten to death in her home in Hartlepool, County Durham, England. She was attacked over the course of seven hours by two teenage girls using various household objects. The first trial began in 2015, but was suspended after information about the defendants was circulated on social media. The following year, after a second trial, both girls were found guilty and subsequently given minimum prison terms of 15 years.

In 2010, police received a report of a child sex abuse ring in Norwich, England. The recurring crimes spanned 10 years and all victims, two boys and three girls, were younger than 13. The perpetrators organized sex parties where adults played card games to decide who would abuse which child. Three members of the gang received significant prison sentences, including ringleader Marie Black, who was jailed for life. Black's sentence made her "one of the UK's most notorious paedophiles."

Alexander Gerald Skeel is an English football coach and domestic violence survivor whose near-fatal abuse at the hands of his girlfriend, Jordan Worth, attracted widespread media coverage owing to the extreme nature of the abuse. Worth controlled, beat, stabbed, starved and tortured Skeel, leaving him with severed tendons, fluid on the brain and burns. She also prevented him from receiving medical treatment for injuries she inflicted.

Joseph McCann is an English serial rapist. In April and May 2019, McCann committed sexual attacks in Hertfordshire, London, Greater Manchester and Cheshire against 11 strangers, ranging in age from an 11-year-old boy to a 71-year-old woman. He evaded police, who suspect that he was sheltered by a "support network" across the country. For these crimes, he was tried at the Old Bailey and, on 6 December, convicted of 37 offences. Three days later, he was given 33 life sentences.

Mark Fellows (5 September 1980) is an English hitman convicted of the murders of John Kinsella and Paul Massey, rival enforcers to the Anti A Team criminal network. At the time of his conviction he was one of only 70 prisoners sentenced to a whole life term.

Olly Stephens was a 13-year-old schoolboy who was fatally stabbed in a field close to his home in Reading in Berkshire, England on 3 January 2021. The subsequent police investigation found that he had been lured to the field by a 14-year-old girl, where he was attacked by two boys aged 13 and 14, the younger of whom was armed with a knife.

References

  1. ↑ "Boys arrested over vicious attack". BBC News. 5 April 2009. Retrieved 30 January 2010.
  2. ↑ Stokes, Paul; Edwards, Richard (6 April 2009). "Children questioned over 'torture' of schoolboys in Edlington are brothers". Telegraph. Retrieved 7 July 2019.
  3. ↑ "Brothers charged with boys attack". BBC News. 7 April 2009. Retrieved 30 January 2010.
  4. ↑ "Edlington torture attack brothers detained". BBC News Online. BBC. 22 January 2010. Archived from the original on 26 January 2010. Retrieved 22 January 2010.
  5. 1 2 "Brothers tortured Edlington attack victims". BBC News. 20 January 2010. Retrieved 5 April 2011.
  6. ↑ Walker, Peter; Wainwright, Martin (22 January 2010). "Edlington brothers jailed for torture of two boys". The Guardian. London. Retrieved 5 April 2011.
  7. ↑ Walker, Peter (5 May 2010). "Edlington brothers are refused appeal against sentences". The Guardian. Retrieved 5 June 2011.
  8. ↑ "Edlington boy torturers granted anonymity". BBC News. 16 December 2016. Retrieved 9 December 2016.
  9. ↑ "Brother who tortured two boys is jailed again". Metro. 8 August 2017. Retrieved 20 September 2020.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.