The Truth About The Edlington Devil Brothers: Vile Pictures
IN Edlington, Doncaster, two brothers tortured two boys. They sexually abused them. One boy almost died. It’s a rare case. But can it be used as an emblem for a bigger debate. A voracious media and a complicit David Cameron get to work.
With no real names given to protect he victims as well as the guilty, the tabloids get to rebranding them. They are the “DEVIL BOYS”
THE Sun (front page): “Fury as Devil Boys get 5 years”
NEXT TIME THEY’LL KILL – Victim’s dad warns – Never let them out
THE father of a boy left close to death after being tortured by two devil brothers yesterday warned they will kill if released. The shocked dad had watched in court as the 11 and 12-year-old – who had a “Beware Of The Kids” sign outside their home –
Says he:
“Never let them out. Next time they will kill. I am certain of that. I don’t think it will ever be safe to release them. I am convinced they will do it again. They loved what they did. You could see it on their faces in court. They were smiling. They are bloodthirsty.”
For sure.
One of the victim’s mum screamed “You evil little b*****ds” at the devil brothers who tortured her ten-year-old son as they were caged yesterday for a minimum of only five years.
Yes, a minimum of only five years. But with no maximum sentence. And that is crucial. The judge says they “may well be in detention for much longer”.
The Express is shocked at the sentenced of “JUST” five years. “Just” is a tabloid word that must always prefix a sentence short of death or life without a chance of parole.
THE brothers who tortured two innocent young schoolboys were jailed for just five years yesterday and can look forward to a life of taxpayer-funded benefits.
Benefits? Like a cell? Like being watched by the authorities? Like having to report to the police regularly? Are these the benefits of crime?
Their crimes were vile. Crimes often are. Pssst! Wanna know how vile? The Sun wants you to know:
The judge had spent two days listening to harrowing accounts of how the brothers – then ten and 11 – lured their victims to a secluded spot in Edlington, South Yorks, and subjected them to savage violence and sexual degradation in April 2009. Boulders were thrown at their heads and dropped on them and they were whipped with sticks.
The older brother tried to strangle one of the boys with a metal hoop. They were also burned with cigarettes, forced to undress and covered with a plastic sheet which was set alight. They were then forced to sexually abuse each other. The brutes filmed the boys’ torment and gloated, “Hell of a picture” as they viewed the footage.
A 12-second video clip shown to the court showed their 11-year-old victim – now 12 – with blood caked and pouring down his swollen face.
How do you respond to that? Do you recoil in horror and find it impossible to read on? Or is there an almost perverse enjoyment in reading of the horror? Do the details make the crime any more real, or in some way reduce it to a show, the words filling in gaps that the imagination would make yet still worse? One day, will a child say that they read how to torture a child in the tabloids?
The Daily Star’s front page agrees that the guilty are Devil Boys. The Star gives the qwords of one victim’s mother in full:
“You evil little bastards. You f***ing arseholes.”
Of course, with the little arseholes in jail, the media will look for someone else to blame.
The Mail duly delivers:
The making of two monsters: Cannabis and cider at nine, violent and explicit DVDs and a father who threatened to slash his wife’s face
It’s the recipe:
Nobody was there to stop them. Certainly not their father, who spent most of his time cultivating marijuana on his allotment, a can of beer permanently in his hand. Nor their mother – who, when confronted by police after her young sons had tortured and beaten an innocent schoolfriend to the brink of death, declared: ‘They’re nowt to do with me.’
So good, then, that the little bastards are in the system, where they can be looked after. Only, the system might not be all that good. Hey, the system might even be to blame.
Says the Times:
The two violent brothers were treated like “naughty boys” by social workers who were more concerned with helping their mother, according to the findings of an inquiry. The attack, according to the report, was entirely preventable by Doncaster children’s services and many opportunities to avert it were missed.
As the Guardian says:
Council in Edlington furore has lurched from crisis to crisis
Doncaster has lurched from crisis to crisis since the collapse of an age-old Labour monopoly of the council, based on an unshakeable alliance with mineworkers and other once-mighty unions. That ended in humiliation and jail terms for fraud in the 1990s, but successors have failed to sort out the mess. Even as the Edlington furore broke, the leadership was in chaos.
Labour, you say? So this is a political matter, not just an isolated horror story about a couple to sadists being locked up? Says the Telegraph:
David Cameron caused a political row after he claimed the case of two brothers locked up indefinitely for the sadistic torture of two schoolboys was evidence of Britain’s “broken society”.
Says Dave, the opportunist:
“When we think about these terrible crimes… I don’t think it’s right every time… to say it is just some isolated incident of evil that we should look away from and forget about. Are we going to do that every time there is a Jamie Bulger or a Baby Peter or a Ben Kinsella or a Gary Newlove or what has happened in Doncaster today? We should ask what has gone wrong with our society and what we’re going to do about it.”
Maybe British society is working, and if proof that it is can be found when we win gold medals at the Olympics or pay our taxes without a rebellion that sees Parliament razed?
The Times, on its front page, calls them “The Crimes Of Neglect”.
“Home truths about a society in crisis,” says the Mail.
Go on:
We hear of some crimes so horrific they provoke anger and disbelief in equal proportion,’ he says. ‘These are the ugly manifestations of a society that is becoming unworthy of that name.’
The boys’ appalling case, he warns, is a ‘hammer blow against the sleeping conscience of the country’, while its message to feckless parents and dysfunctional families couldn’t be clearer.
A nation shocked: A court sketch of the sadistic brothers facing sentencing for their sadistic attack on two young boys
It’s time to accept, he insists, that we have ‘responsibilities as well as rights, obligations as well as entitlements.’
The year is 1993, and the speaker is the up-and-coming shadow Home Secretary, one Tony Blair.
In this keynote speech, which will get him spoken of as prime ministerial material, the case he’s referring to is the torture and murder of two-year-old James Bulger by a pair of Merseyside schoolboys, both aged 10.
And the point of knowing that is..? Anyone? It is a sign of nothing other than the fact that some – a very few – children are sick and need locking up. It is sign that nothing much changes and – thank God – such crimes are rare. Although one organ wants to blame you:
Torture brothers: How did we let this happen?
Meanwhile, the Indy just wants big debate:
Was any one professional responsible for decisions made in relation to this highly dysfunctional family? How bad must it get before a child is removed? Was there anyone to stand advocate for the many children here, before – or even after – they came into conflict with the law? With the boys now detained and, it is to be hoped, eventually helped to make a new start, these are the next questions that must be asked.
You want to blame someone? Blame the guilty. Easy…
Posted: 23rd, January 2010 | In: Key Posts, Reviews Comments (10) | TrackBack | Permalink
