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.
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hsyyEIx6aPla4y7URAySYd6-WodAD9AG6MJO2Kids doing what they see on TV everyday
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