hartlepool snapchat killers caged for 15 years the AA grumpy column

[the grumps]

welcome to another AA grumpy column and this is the one i,ve been waiting for.

the two hartlepool snapchat killers were today handed life sentences for the murder of anglea wrightson the judge mr justice globe added a minium of 15 years but refused to name them as one tried 4 times to commit suicide and the other self harming.

Two teenage girls who beat to death a vulnerable woman in a 'gratuitous' attack in her own living room have been jailed for 15 years.

The girls were just 13 and 14 when they spent nine hours battering frail Angela Wrightson with her few meagre possessions, including a television set, a shovel and a coffee table.

The judge described how the girls had mentally and physically tortured their victim before leaving her home in Hartlepool, County Durham, 'without knowing or caring whether she was alive or dead'.

The girls, now both 15, were today handed life sentences but must only serve a minimum of 15 years - meaning they could be freed before they are 30.

Mr Justice Globe also refused an application by the Press to name the killers, saying the older girl had attempted suicide on a number of occasions over the course of the trial, including on court premises.

Miss Wrightson, who was 5ft 4ins and weighed six-and-a-half stone, was found dead in the blood-spattered front room of her terraced home just 17 days before Christmas in 2014.

Despite the 39-year-old begging for her life, the pair stopped the assault only to pose for pictures which the younger girl sent to friends on social network Snapchat, with the caption 'nah xx'.

They were later caught on CCTV after leaving Miss Wrightson's home at around 11pm and returning following a 'break' at 2am to finish the bloody job, and even called police to give them a lift home when again they took a picture and shared it on Snapchat.

The girls sobbed uncontrollably as they were convicted of murder on Tuesday but remained emotionless as they were sentenced today.

Addressing the girls, Mr Justice Globe said: 'This is not a case of instantaneous death following a shot, a stab or a blow, she pleaded for you stop This was a sustained attack over a long period of time carried out with weapons in many different ways, she suffered mentally and physically before she lost consciousness and died.

'Her alcoholic state may have numbed the pain but it certainly won’t have taken it away, this is a highly significant aggravating factor.

'She must have despaired at being unable to escape you in the confines of her living room this was in her own living room She kindly invited you in she kindly bought you what you wanted and let you stay. You abused her hospitality and attacked her again and again.'

Mr Justice Globe said that the pair had faced a minimum sentence of 12 years because of their age, but that this had been extended due to the suffering they inflicted on their victim.

He added they would have faced much longer sentences if they were adults.

Describing Miss Wrightson's suffering, the judge said she suffered 70 separate slash wounds and 54 separate blunt force injuries, adding that some indicated she had tried to fight back.

He said: 'In addition to punching, kicking and stamping, an absolute minimum of 27 blows were struck with 14 different items', including a table, a television and a printer You were aware Angie was particularly vulnerable because of her circumstances.

Miss Wrightson's mother, Maureen, sobbed in the public gallery as the judge summarised parts of her witness impact statement.

He told the court: '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.

'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.'

However the judge refused to lift an anonymity order preventing the identification of the pair, saying that the older one had tried to kill herself on a number of occasions over the course of the trial.

He said some of these attempts happened on court premises and that on one occasion, a court official had saved her life.

Addressing the older girl, he said: '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.'

Mr Justice Globe said the case for naming the younger girl was stronger but that she was also vulnerable. She had been self-harming as recently as last night, he said.

The appalling murder sent shockwaves across the nation and raised urgent questions about how we care for our most troubled children as it emerged the pair had absconded from care homes 18 times in the 30 nights before they battered Miss Wrightson to death.

The authorities have been accused of being 'failures' and the detective who led the inquiry described the murder as the most brutal of his career.

In the wake of the convictions, disturbing details emerged of the killers’ feral lifestyles roaming the streets of Hartlepool.

Social workers described Girl A - the older of the pair - as the ‘most volatile young person’ they had come across.

At the age of 11, she began taking drugs and got drunk on a regular basis. And on the day of the murder, she was high on strong painkillers given to her by her mother The girl survived a childhood devoid of stability or structure. By the time she reached the care system, she had been exposed to savage domestic violence at home.

She watched boyfriends beat her mother. And the 15-year-old would often fly into fits of rage of her own, trashing her care home bedroom and lashing out at family members.

The girl has three siblings but shares a father with just one of them. Asked whether she knew the fathers of her siblings, she replied: ‘They are in jail now, all of them.’

Her violent tempers became so serious that she was given a strategy to cope by her local Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service.

Mental health experts said she had a personality disorder and had little understanding of the consequences of her actions. They told her to draw pictures as a way of expressing her anger and calming herself down.

On the day of the attack, Girl A went to her family home, hoping to spend time with her mother. But her mother told her: ‘F*** off and kill yourself.’

Girl B was considered the less aggressive of the pair by a social worker who worked with them, but she is the one who used her smartphone to take chilling pictures of their dying victim.

Girl B, now 15 but who was 13 at the time of the killing, was from a more stable family background than Girl A. Her father is in full-time work and her parents attended court to support her.

But she ran away from home several times. A photo issued by police when she ran away three years ago shows Girl B looking like an ordinary schoolgirl but she was prone to losing her temper. Her parents could not cope and she was taken into care. Although she is a year younger than her accomplice, many said she was the dominant one. Girl A’s sibling said their relationship was a worry because Girl B had the potential to be a bad influence.

The sibling said: ‘I told Girl B to stop coming to my house as I didn’t think that her and my sister were good together. I was aware they were going missing together and this worried me as I thought my sister was too young to be out at night.’

The girls absconded from their care homes 18 times in the month leading up to the murder, and attempts to keep the girls apart were met with disdain by Girl B, who was determined to stay close to her best friend.

She texted Girl A: ‘We’re not allowed no contact with each other? Who’s not allowed no contact with each other? LMFAOOO [Laugh my f*****g a*** off, off, off]. We will be with each other through thick and thin. F*****g crank man, just cos you are my little partner in crime. Putting me out of town, thinking that we still won’t get in touch with each other and s***. Hahaha. Well, I can’t wait to see you when I’m down. Get f*****g mortal!! Love you, Gorgeous Girl!!!!’

Girl B was fixated on her smartphone. In the days before the murder she begged her foster carers for a new phone and was given one.

Final moments: This is thought to be one of the last images of Ms Wrightson, showing her buying something in a shop just hours before she was murdered. The killers knew their victim and used her for alcohol

she used the phone throughout the attack on Angela Wrightson to take pictures, send messages to friends and play pop music on YouTube.

A social worker said Girl B’s mother was ‘proactive’ in trying to discipline and control her, but she had problems with authority figures and became angry when discussing her care arrangements.

Mr Justice Globe said: 'She describes the horror of seeing Angie's battered

body 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.'

While at the house, the younger girl made a phone call over Facebook to a friend who heard her say: ‘Go on. Smash her head in. Bray her. F****** kill her,’ as the other girl laughed. Police found Miss Wrightson suffered 100 injuries inflicted by weapons including a coffee table, television set, computer printer, wooden stick laced with screws, shovel and a kettle.

The attack began in the early evening. At 9pm, the girls stopped to take a selfie. In the photo, the two girls can be seen smiling, while Angela is cowering in the background with bruises on her face

The girls left the house for a ‘timeout’ at 11pm, to visit a friend. When he asked about blood on their clothes, they told him they had both fallen over. They returned to Miss Wrightson’s house at 2am, before calling the police at 4am to take them back to their separate care homes. The officers said they were in ‘high spirits’.

The younger girl even took a photo of her friend in the back of the police van, posting it online with the caption: ‘Me and (name) in the back on the bizzie van again.’

Both girls denied murder. The older girl admitted manslaughter on the grounds on diminished responsibility, but the younger girl denied contributing to Miss Wrightson’s injuries, or encouraging her friend. Her defence counsel said she was ‘preoccupied’ with her mobile phone at the time.

During an eight-week trial at Leeds Crown Court, shocking details emerged of how the girls’ lives spiralled into alcohol and violence. They began taking a cocktail of drink and drugs aged 11, frequently ran away from their care homes together and absconded from school. A former neighbour said: ‘Separately they were all right, they could be quite sweet girls, but together they were devils.’

Following their conviction on Tuesday, Det Chief Supt Peter McPhillips, of Cleveland Police, said: ‘This was a highly unusual and shocking incident. Throughout almost 25 years of service I have never come across such a brutal murder committed by such young girls.’

Gerry Wareham, of the Crown Prosecution Service, said the killers showed no remorse but instead ‘laughed and smiled’. He added: ‘In our society it is hard to imagine that two girls of such a young age could be capable of such violence.

‘The attack that the girls committed against Angela Wrightson was brutal and sustained. One can only imagine the fear and distress that she must have felt in the final hours of her life.’

Former Cleveland officer Steve Matthews, who is now standing to run the force on a Ukip ticket, said there were ‘real failures from all concerned’.

‘I am not sure it is a police or a social service problem – it is a combination of all that which has completely failed her,’ he said. ‘They have failed that poor woman for her to die in such a horrific way.

‘And as for the girls, why have people given up on them? When you go into care you assume they will be cared for.’

The Teeswide Safeguarding Adults Board and Hartlepool Safeguarding Children Board have said the three independent reviews into the murder will be made public.

Dave Pickard, independent chair of the Hartlepool Safeguarding Children Board, said: 'Events like this are extremely rare and we owe it to Angela to learn everything we can and, where necessary, share those lessons nationally.'

Read more: Teenage girls who killed Angela Wrightson are jailed for 15 years�* | Daily Mail Online

AAG

so there you have it the whole story in all its horrific form as the 2 snapchart girls start their 15 years behind bars.

i wouldnt like to say if the self harming and 4 suicide attempts are just crying wolf to avoid being sent to prison but a mental hospital instead where life is a little cushier if you are serious about topping yourself you wouldnt look for someone to save you would you.

justice globe in my opinion got this sentence absolutley right they would have been looking at 12 years minimum but this was extended to 15 due to the brutal nature of the crime.

personally i think the realisation has kicked in and the girls never expected to be serving life with a 15 year minimum and are now finding it a bit of a shock girl A and girl B will probably be named eventually if not by the gagged media but by the internet which courts have no power over.

its a sad ending in reality yes the girls in my opinion got what they deserved and will possibly face further retrebution in prison even as VP,S but its a tragic end to not only 1 life but 3 the girls have the chance to face the parole board in 15 years time just because they are sentenced to 15 years minimum doesnt automaticaly mean they will get out at 30 it will go on their behaviour and how they spend their lives in the secure custody unit probably at new hall which is the nearest prison to leeds but will still remain on life licences.

hopefully when they are released they will be rehabillitated as they will get all the help they need in prison and at 30 years old continue their lives in a positive way.

there is lots of hate and bile now but eventually this will fade away as todays news becomes tommorows chip wrapper.

though the public may eventually forget angelas family will never forget her or the system that let down 3 people ...rest in peace angie you are now free of your pain.