Two teenagers who were in care and described as being out of control have been sentenced to life in custody for torturing a vulnerable woman to death in a “cowardly attack” that lasted more than nine hours.
Angela Wrightson, an alcoholic who craved company and regularly invited strangers into her home in the hope of conversation, would often sit on the doorstep of her Hartlepool home talking to passersby.
On 8 December, 2014, on one such occasion, two girls aged 13 and 14 visited her home and demanded she buy them alcohol. Wrightson considered the two girls friends, the court heard, and she obliged. In the hours that followed, the 39-year-old suffered more than 100 injuries. During an argument the teenagers turned on her, launching a sustained attack using a television set, coffee table and wooden stick to torture and eventually kill their host.
Sentencing the girls, Mr Justice Globe said: “Children, such as you, were attracted by her generosity and took advantage of her. You would go to her home. She would agree to buy you alcohol and cigarettes. She would let you drink and smoke in her home."
Justice Globe said: “It was an attack carried out in Angie’s own home. She kindly invited you in; she kindly went out to buy you what you wanted; she kindly let you stay. You then abused her hospitality and attacked her again and again in the very place where a person is supposed to feel safe.
They left the house at 4am and even called police to give them a lift home using them as a “taxi service”; again they took a picture and shared it on Snapchat. The officers said they were in “high spirits”.
The judge spoke of an emotional letter he had received from Wrightson’s mother that described her horror at seeing her daughter’s battered body in the mortuary. “She does not think she will ever be able to blink those images away,” Globe said. “She cannot understand how you could have been as violent as you were. She is not alone in that view.
“She has been disgusted by the laughing and giggling and sharing of photographs during the time of and immediately after the attack. She eventually found it so difficult to listen to the detail of the evidence that she had to stop coming to court.”
Globe rejected a challenge by the press to lift an order that gives the two girls anonymity. The order was challenged by Times Newspapers, Daily Mail-owner Associated News, and Newsgroup, citing public interest due to the grave nature of the crime. However, objections were raised by Hartlepool borough council and Cleveland police over the welfare of the teenagers and the possibility of reprisals against their families.
In rejecting the application the judge revealed that the older girl had tried to kill herself four times during the course of the trial. He said some of these attempts had happened on court premises during the trial and said one court official had saved the girl’s life when she had tried to strangle herself with her own hair in the toilet.
Both girls denied murder and failed to show any remorse during the Leeds crown court trial, at which they tried to blame each other. The older of the two admitted manslaughter while the other said she did not encourage or take part in the violence. But the judge said they acted in tandem.
In mitigation, Jamie Hill defending the older girl said the violence inflicted against Wrightson was “born out of childhood stupidity” and the girls were “clearly out of control”. He argued that the girl was suffering from a mental disorder and had not intended to kill Wrightson.
“It is difficult to rationalise what happened. One life has been lost and several others have been ruined. This child is not one that was evil but one that was damaged who put herself in a strange place. Whatever the trigger for the violence she was not a fully functioning person at that time in her life.”
Wrightson’s family said the trial would haunt them for the rest of their lives as they were told that she pleaded for her life before being murdered. Their statement said: “It’s true that Angela (or Angie as she was known to us all) led a troubled and at times chaotic lifestyle. And as a family we were not as close as we ought to have been. The chance to put that right has been taken away from us.
Those girls were aged 13 and 14 at the time of their crimes, one of them suffers from a non-specified mental disorder and neither showed remorse for what happened, only crying when their sentences were given. Was it fair? Should they've been sent to a mental institution instead? Who is to blame?
I think life sentences should only be handed out in case all attempts to rehabilitate them failed, but this isn't an opinion specific to this case, being the same for all others.
