Brothers, 12 and 10, plead guilty to attack on schoolboys

Victims, aged nine and 11, were robbed, sexually assaulted and burned with cigarettes in Edlington, South Yorkshire
Two brothers aged 12 and 10 today admitted carrying out a brutal attack on a pair of young boys during which they tortured, robbed and sexually assaulted their victims.
The brothers – who cannot be named for legal reasons – were in foster care when they lured their victims, a boy aged nine and his 11-year-old uncle, to semi-wild parkland on the edge of Edlington, a former pit village near Doncaster, South Yorkshire, on 4 April this year.
The boys were subjected to what prosecutors at a previous hearing called a "horrific, violent, sustained physical attack" involving bricks, sticks and a noose.
The victims also suffered cigarette burns and were forced to perform a series of sexual acts on each other.
Today at Sheffield crown court, where their case was sent to be tried in the adult judicial system, the pair admitted grievous bodily harm with intent, robbery, and forcing a child to take part in sexual acts.
Nicholas Campbell QC, prosecuting, described the offences as "grave crimes".
The two separately admitted one count each of assault in connection with an attack on another 11-year-old boy on 28 March.
The grievous bodily harm charge was submitted as an alternative to an earlier attempted murder allegation, which the brothers denied.
"It has been explained [to the victims' families] that although the offences are not of the same gravity, the maximum sentence for causing grievous bodily harm with the intention so to do is the same for that of attempted murder," Campbell said.
"Each [family] has understood that the acceptance of these pleas would mean that their sons do not have to give evidence."
The maximum sentence for grievous bodily harm with intent is life imprisonment.
The crime prompted deep shock in Edlington and nationwide, and evoked comparisons with the 1993 murder of two-year-old James Bulger by Robert Thompson and Jon Venables, who were 10 at the time.
It also raised fresh questions for the children's department of Doncaster council, which was taken over by a new Westminster-appointed management team a month before the attack.