British brothers, 10 and 12, admit beating, burning, and sexually abusing two youngsters

Brothers, 10 and 12, plead guilty to brutal attack

LONDON — A pair of British brothers pleaded guilty Thursday to luring two young boys into a clearing to see some animals — and then torturing them in an attack so violent it left one of the victims pleading to be left alone to die.

The attackers, aged 10 and 11 at the time, robbed, beat, and stabbed their victims with sticks and bricks. One child, aged 10, had a sink thrown on to his head, while his nephew, aged 9, was forced to eat nettles. At one point the young tormentors tried to force the victims to have sex with each another.

None of the children can be named for legal reasons.

So violent was the attack that prosecutors charged the aggressors with attempted murder — making them some of the youngest ever accused of such a crime in Britain. Media here compared the case to the shocking death of James Bulger, a 2-year-old abducted from a shopping center near Liverpool in 1993 by two 10-year-olds who punched him, beat him with bricks and hit him with an iron bar before leaving his body on a railroad track.

Britain’s prime minister weighed in, calling the case “disturbing.”

The pair denied attempted murder, but admitted lesser charges of robbery, intentionally causing grievous bodily harm and causing a child to engage in sexual activity. Prosecutors at Sheffield Crown Court, in northern England, said they would accept the pleas, in part to spare the young victims the ordeal of a trial.

The April 4 assault came to light when a group of girls in the former English mining town of Edlington found the 9-year-old stumbling around, spattered in blood, with a cut on his arm which went down to the bone. His uncle was later found unconscious, naked from the waist down, with a large cut to the head and bruising around his neck.

Prosecutor Graham Measures told an earlier hearing that the younger boy said he and his uncle went to a secluded area of woodland and ravines with the brothers, who said they wanted to show them some toads and foxes.

It was then that the brothers turned on their victims, stealing a small amount of cash and a cell phone. They then began beating them with sticks and bricks, at one point stabbing the younger child in the arm and then jamming cigarettes into the gaping wound. His genitals were stamped on, and his eyelids were burned with cigarettes. He was forced to smoke, eat nettles and then ordered to commit suicide.

He said he then picked up a stick and put it into his mouth to convince his attackers he was harming himself.

The uncle received even harsher treatment, having a broken sink smashed against his head and a noose rung around his neck. The younger brother told police that his uncle pleaded with the attackers, saying: “Leave me, I can’t see. Leave me to die.”

The 9-year-old said the attack only ended when the brothers said they had to go to meet their stepfather — although one brother warned his sibling that they should not leave before killing their victims.

The brothers had a history of violence. The 11-year-old, now 12, had already appeared in court four times for acts of violence. His younger brother had been reprimanded for a variety of crimes, including assault.

They lived with five other male siblings and their 36-year-old mother in a run-down home on a different part of town before being moved to a foster home in Edlington about a month before the attack.