Brothers who tortured two boys get lifelong anonymity

TWO brothers who tortured two boys almost to death were yesterday granted a rare court order giving them anonymity for life.

A High Court judge approved the ‘truly exceptional’ gagging order under the Human Rights Act, despite the pair’s lawyer conceding their crimes were ‘utterly horrific’.

The brothers were aged ten and 11 when they battered, strangled and sexually abused a boy of nine and his 11-year-old friend on an isolated patch of wasteland.

It is only the fourth time a judge has allowed a convicted criminal lifelong anonymity – which was also granted to the killers of James Bulger.

But in the brothers’ case the order is even more draconian as it protects both their original identities – which were not made public at their conviction – and the new identities they have been given since their release this year. In all previous cases the order has only protected the new identities.

The ruling by senior judge Sir Geoffrey Vos provoked anger from locals in Edlington, Yorkshire, where the attack took place in April 2009. Derek Wright, who found the youngest victim wandering the streets covered in blood from knife wounds and desperately seeking help, said: ‘I have been hoping and praying they did not get anonymity.

‘They [the brothers] deserve to die – they get no sympathy from me. They can have the best barrister in the world but I saw what that little lad went through.’

Phillippa Kaufmann, QC, who represented the brothers, said they needed protection because public outrage at children who commit ‘heinous’ offences was often more severe than towards adults. ‘The concern of this vilification is that the children ... face threats which are unlike those faced by any other offender,’ she told the court.

‘They face the real possibility of being seriously assaulted by vigilante groups.’

Mr Justice Keith, who oversaw the criminal proceedings, said the brothers should serve indeterminate periods in custody of at least five years. When passing sentence, he told them: ‘The fact is this was prolonged, sadistic violence for no reason.’