Long history of violence that led to brutal slaying

THE youths who murdered Robert Wilson were out of control long before the fatal attack, their shocking history of offending shows,

In November 2019, just two months before Robert’s murder, 15-year-old Luke Gaukroger was in the dock at Leeds Crown Court.

In April that year Gaukroger, armed with a baseball bat, and two older teenagers went to the Huddersfield home of a man they believed to be a paedophile.

One of them discharged a firearm twice into the air in front of the terrified man before they fled.

He pleaded guilty to affray and possession of an offensive weapon and was sentenced to a 12-month referral order, which meant he had to be supervised by a local authority youth offending team.

A probation report prepared in November 2019 showed a propensity for violence was emerging at school.

He was permanently excluded after he took a ball bearing gun into class. In May 2018 he got into an alternative school, but was expelled again after assaulting a fellow pupil. For nearly a year before the murder he was doing just two hours of schooling a week, leaving him often on the streets.

The youth team assessed his risk of causing serious harm to others and of reoffending as “medium”. Gaukroger and Earnshaw are said to have been part of a gang which terrorised the area.

Five months before the murder, a cricket player was left with a broken leg after 12 drunken youths stormed the pitch, which adjoins the pharmaceutical plant, during a match.

They attacked players with knives, a baseball bat, cricket stumps and a pitchfork. One of the boys shouted: “This is our postcode – we run this postcode”.

Documents showed that Earnshaw faced 17 exclusions from schools for disruptive behaviour and physical assaults.

In October 2017, aged 16, he was sentenced at Leeds Crown Court to a 12-month youth rehabilitation order when he admitted GBH after stabbing a fellow pupil in the stomach twice outside Colne Valley High School.

The youth team report said he was of “low risk” of reoffending. In December 2018 he was back in court after being caught with a knife at a pupil referral centre for expelled children.

The youth offending team said he was at a medium risk of reoffending.

Six months before the murder, Earnshaw appeared in court over an assault on an employee who ejected him from a store in Linthwaite the previous November.

KILLERS: Teens Earnshaw, top, and Gaukroger