Two teens jailed for LIFE after battering woman to death in five-hour attack
TWO teenage girls who murdered a 39-year-old woman by battering her to death with household objects in a five-hour ordeal have been given life sentences with a minimum of 15 years.
PAThe pair, who cannot be named for legal reasons, showed no reaction when they were sentenced at Leeds Crown Court.
Now both 15, the girls were 13 and 14 when they attacked Angela Wrightson in the lounge of her home in Hartlepool, County Durham, using weapons including a shovel, a TV, a coffee table and a stick studded with screws and leaving her with 103 injuries.
The judge said the teenagers acted in tandem in "a cowardly attack".
He said: "This was a sustained attack over a long period of time carried out with weapons in many different ways.
"She undoubtedly suffered considerably, both mentally and physically, before she ultimately lost consciousness and died.
"Her alcoholic state, considerable though it was, may have numbed the pain but I stress the word may and it most certainly would not have taken it away."
PAThe judge refused to lift an order banning the identification of the two girls after hearing details of how the older one had repeatedly tried to kill herself.
He said some of these attempts happened on court premises, during the trial.
He said the case for naming the younger girl was stronger but he accepted she was also vulnerable.
The judge told the older girl: "I am concerned and disturbed by what I regard as a heightened real risk that identification by a press blitz will elevate the risk to your life to such an extent that I am satisfied that there is a real and immediate risk to your life if you were to be identified as one of the two girls who murdered Angela Wrightson."
PAA victim impact statement from Miss Wrightson's mother, Maureen, was not read to the court but the judge summarised parts of it.
He said: "She describes the horror of seeing Angie's battered body in the mortuary. She does not think she will ever be able to blink those images away.
"Having seen photographs of what Angie looked like at that time, I readily understand why she is of that view.
"She cannot understand how you could have been as violent as you were.
"She is not alone in that view.
"She had been disgusted by the laughing and giggling and sharing of photographs during the time of and immediately after the attack."
PAShards of glass and small pieces of gravel were found strewn over the victim's body, and ash from burnt paper had been put into one of her ears.
She had been attacked with a wooden stick laced with screws, a television set, a shovel, ornaments, a picture frame and a kettle, and the court heard that Miss Wrightson was forcibly restrained while the pair battered and tortured her.
The sick pair visited Miss Wrightson, an alcoholic known as "Alco Ange", on a number of occasions as she would buy them alcohol and cigarettes.
On the evening of the murder, they let themselves into her home and asked Miss Wrightson to go to the shop for them.
Both had been drinking before they arrived and the older girl told the court she had taken prescription drugs earlier in the day.
Miss Wrightson, who was 5ft 4ins and weighed six-and-a-half stone, was assaulted in 12 separate locations around the room in an attack that took place over five hours.
PAWhile at the house, the younger girl made a phone call over Facebook to a friend who heard her say: "Go on (older girl). Smash her head in. Bray her. F****** kill her," as another laughed in the background.
The court heard that the defendants left the house for "time out" at around 11pm, during which time they went to see a friend, who asked them why they were covered in blood.
They told him they had both fallen over.
The pair then returned to the scene at around 2am and stayed for a further two hours before calling the police to take them home.
The court heard they left Miss Wrightson in an "undignified manner", naked from the waist down on her sofa.
PAOfficers who collected the girls described them as laughing and joking and in "high spirits".
While in the van, they took a picture, which was posted to the social media site Snapchat with the message: "Me and (older girl) in the back, on the bizzie van again."
An earlier selfie posted to Snapchat showed the defendants smiling with Ms Wrightson pictured in the background shortly before her death, with further selfies showing the girls drinking cider from a bottle.
Both defendants admitted being present at the time the injuries were inflicted on Miss Wrightson.
PAThe judge told the girls they would have been facing much longer sentences if they were adults.
He said he was effectively giving them a mandatory life sentence but told them that, because of their ages, this was referred to as "detention at Her Majesty's pleasure".
The judge said the starting point for his consideration of their minimum sentences was 12 years, due to their age.
But he said he had increased this due to the aggravating factors in the case.
The teenagers sat through the two-hour hearing surrounded by carers and intermediaries.
The older one wiped away the occasional tear as the judge went through their attack on Miss Wrightson.
PASummarising their victim's injuries, the judge said: "The pathology evidence establishes an absolute minimum of 70 separate slash injuries and 54 separate blunt force injuries - 71 were to the head and face, 31 were to the body, 22 were deflection injuries to the back of her hands, wrists and arms as she tried to ward off the blows.
"As she did so, you fractured three of her fingers.
"Those defensive injuries support what you (the younger girl) said to one of your friends the following day about Angie pleading with you to stop hitting her."
The judge went on: "In addition to punching, kicking and stamping, an absolute minimum of 27 blows were struck with 14 different items. They include heavy items such as a table, a television, a printer and a shovel.”
No comments:
Post a Comment