Two teenage girls who tortured a woman to death in Hartlepool, northeast England, were on Thursday sentenced to life in prison with a minimum of 15 years’ detention.
Angela Wrightson, 39, was beaten in her home for almost nine hours and suffered over 100 injuries before she was killed by the two girls in December 2014.
The Leeds Crown Court ruled that they must be jailed for at least 15 years before being considered for parole. The duo, who were 13 and 14 at the time of the attack, were not named because of their age.
Sentencing the girls, Justice Globe said: “It was an attack that was carried out by the two of you as a pair. This made it a cowardly attack. 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.”
“It was an attack that included gratuitous degradation: you took photographs in the room when she was injured; you published one of them; you smashed up her home … You then left her alone not knowing or caring if she was alive or dead,” the judge said.
{{/usCountry}}“It was an attack that included gratuitous degradation: you took photographs in the room when she was injured; you published one of them; you smashed up her home … You then left her alone not knowing or caring if she was alive or dead,” the judge said.
{{/usCountry}}Wrightson’s family said in a statement: “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. Angie was attacked and brutally murdered in her own home, a place where we all have the right to feel safe”.