Mother of teenage murderer 'asked for daughter to be taken to safe place'

The mother of a teenage girl, who along with her friend battered a 39-year-old woman to death in her home, said social services did not take the warnings she gave about her daughter seriously.

The girls were 13 and 14 when they murdered Angela Wrightson in the lounge of her home in Hartlepool, County Durham, using weapons including a shovel, a TV, a coffee table and a stick studded with screws during a five-hour long ordeal.

The case at Leeds Crown Court heard how Miss Wrightson suffered an "absolute minimum of 70 separate slash injuries and 54 separate blunt-force injuries - 71 were to the head and face, 31 were to the body, 22 were deflection injuries to the back of her hands, wrists and arms as she tried to ward off the blows".

Mr Justice Globe, who refused to let the teenagers be named, sentenced them to a minimum of 15 years behind bars.

Speaking to ITV Tyne Tees, the mother of the youngest girl said she begged the local council to take her daughter in but refused to take responsibility for what she did.

The woman, who cannot be named, said: "I asked them to put my daughter in a safe place because she was running and missing from home all the time.

"I literally had to beg them for foster placement as we really wanted her out the town and out the bad company she was with and have her phone taken off her."

She said: "She made her own choices in life, I tried my best I could not watch her 24 hours a day and I feel like they did not give me enough help.

"I told them I was worried, something was going to happen, something seriously bad or she was going to get hurt.

"They said they could not because you have to have a court order to take them into secure accommodation."

She also expressed her sorrow for the Wrightson family and what had happened to their daughter.

The Teesside Safeguarding Adults Board and Hartlepool Safeguarding Children Board has said the three independent reviews into the circumstances of Miss Wrightson's murder will be made public.