Teenagers who killed friend with scythes get life

Three teenagers were jailed for life yesterday for butchering a friend with two large farming scythes after a quarrel on a summer camping trip.

The trio, including a girl aged 15 at the time, stole the murder weapons from a country churchyard and left one embedded in the 17-year-old boy's neck.

Their victim, Terry Lee Hurst, who had learning difficulties, suffered more than 80 wounds in the frenzied attack at an isolated campsite by Broomhead reservoir, on the edge of the moors north of Sheffield last July.

Shocked detectives described his injuries as the worst they had ever seen.

The killers' anonymity was removed at a hearing this week at Sheffield crown court, when they were named as John Sawdon and Jermaine James, both 17, and 16-year-old Rebecca Peeters.

They all admitted taking part in their friend's murder.

The judge, Mr Justice Andrew Smith, told them yesterday that they would all serve full mandatory life terms. Sawdon would remain in jail for a minimum of 15 years before he was considered for release and Peeters, and James 13 years.

"Your offence was chilling," said the judge.

"You knew he would be defenceless. You found him in a tent and set about him mercilessly.

"After the initial assault, Terry Hurst tried in vain to run. He couldn't escape. You all chased him and caught him and continued the attack."

The court heard that the trio had also kicked the boy, stamped on him and put a plastic bag over his head.

The judge said: "You intended to kill him. It was the cruellest of crimes and perhaps the more terrible because teenagers committed it. None of you showed any mercy whatsoever."

Sawdon, of Bolsterstone, Peeters, of Stocksbridge, near Sheffield, and James, of Wincobank in Sheffield, who was on a college vocational course last summer, sat in the dock with two security guards and a social worker.

James and Sawdon were dressed in black shirts and dark trousers, Peeters in a sky-blue top over a pink blouse, with long, braided blonde hair.

South Yorkshire police said that there had been a disagreement at the campsite, but not one thought remotely likely to lead to such terrible violence.

Terry had stayed by the group's tent in woodland on the shores of the reservoir while the other three went off to the nearby village of Bolsterstone.

They returned with the scythes, which were used for cutting rough grass round graves and had been left by the church. On their return to the camp, the attack involved three separate phases in which Terry tried in vain to get away.

The two boys had been remanded in custody and Peeters was in local authority care pending the sentencing. No details of the killing were given at a two-day hearing when the trio admitted murder in January, which was held under rules brought in after the murder of James Bulger by two boys in Liverpool.

Barristers and Mr Justice Smith dispensed with their robes and wigs for the January hearing and the three defendants were allowed to sit with their lawyers in the well of Sheffield crown court rather than the dock.

All three were known to police over minor matters, but there had been nothing to suggest they were capable of such merciless brutality.

Terry was born in Shiregreen, Sheffield, where he lived with his foster family and studied at Sheffield College, before moving to nearby Penistone.

Police said: "He was a good lad and had not been in trouble with the police."

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