Angela Wrightson: Girls found guilty of murder

Two 15-year-old girls who “battered and tortured” a woman to death in her own home

have been found guilty of murder.

Angela Wrightson, 39, was found in her living room with more than 100 injuries –

including 80 to her face – in Hartlepool in December 2014.

The girls, then aged 13 and 14, used a variety of weapons including a coffee table and a

computer printer to carry out the attack, Leeds Crown Court heard.

Both were in tears upon conviction.

Ms Wrightson was found naked from the waist down and grit and shards of glass had

been scattered over her, jurors heard.

Other weapons used in the attack, which lasted more than five hours, included a wooden

stick laced with screws, a television set, a shovel, ornaments, a picture frame and a kettle.

The court heard Ms Wrightson was forcibly restrained while the pair “battered and

tortured” her in a “sustained and brutal” attack which took place in 12 separate locations

in the room.

Her blood-spattered body was found by her landlord the following morning in a scene

“akin to a bomb site”.

After the attack, they phoned police and asked for a lift home before taking a selfie on a

mobile phone in the back of the police van, the eight-week trial was told.

The court was shown photos taken by the duo of themselves and Miss Wrightson during

the evening of the attack.

‘Harrowing experience’

The older girl accepted she struck the victim but said she did not intend her serious harm

and shifted the blame on her accomplice, telling the jury her younger friend told her to

carry out the attack.

But the younger of the two said she played no part in the assault and did not encourage

her co-accused in any way.

She told police her friend became angry and launched the attack after Miss Wrightson

made a comment about her family.

In a statement, Ms Wrightson’s family said after the verdicts: “Angie was attacked and

brutally murdered in her own home, a place where we all have the right to feel safe.

“Listening to the details of her injuries and of her final moments has been a harrowing

experience and something which will continue to haunt us each and every day. No

sentence, regardless of its severity, will ever bring Angie back.”

Gerry Wareham, of the Crown Prosecution Service, said: “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.

“Given the severity of their assault on Miss Wrightson, one would expect the girls to

have shown a degree of remorse in the wake of her death.

“Instead, they laughed and smiled while posing for a “selfie”, with each continuing to

deny that they had murdered her throughout the investigation and prosecution of this

case.”

The pair, who cannot be named for legal reasons, will be sentenced on Thursday.