The murder of Sophie Lancaster occurred in England in August 2007. Lancaster and her boyfriend, Robert Maltby, were attacked by a group of teenage boys in Stubbylee Park in Bacup, Lancashire on 11 August 2007. As a result of the severe head injuries Lancaster sustained in the attack, she went into a coma from which she never regained consciousness. She died of her injuries thirteen days later. The police said the attack may have been linked to the couple wearing gothic fashion and being members of the goth subculture.
Five teenage boys were later arrested and charged with murder. Two of them, Ryan Herbert and Brendan Harris, were convicted of murder and sentenced to life imprisonment. The other three were convicted and jailed for grievous bodily harm against Maltby. A charity, The Sophie Lancaster Foundation, was established in Lancaster's name after her death. Numerous events have paid tribute to her locally, nationally and internationally. Plays, films, art and books have covered the issues surrounding the attack.
Background
Sophie Lancaster
Sophie Louise Lancaster (born 26 November 1986) grew up in Haslingden and attended Stonefold Primary School and Haslingden High School. The youngest of two children, Lancaster was a vegetarian since the age of six, and a pacifist. She enjoyed reading, sometimes finishing an entire book in a day, and was a fan of the Harry Potter series. Sophie was in her early teens when she first started wearing gothic fashion and accessories. Her, mother, Sylvia, said: "I thought she looked beautiful and very cool. At just over 5ft and very petite, she’d always been such a quiet, shy girl, so I was pleased that she was learning to express herself. Her new look seemed to give her more confidence." At the time of her death, Sophie was on a gap year, working at HMV, and planned to attend Accrington and Rossendale College to do an English degree, hoping to become either a journalist or a youth worker.
Lancaster had been in a relationship with Robert Maltby, a 21-year-old art student from Bacup, for almost three years. Before moving in with Sophie, Robert lived with his parents, Tracy and David, and older brother, Christopher, and attended Bacup and Rawtenstall Grammar School. The couple first met in 2004, and at the time of the attack, they had been living together on King Street in Bacup for around six months. Like Sophie, Robert also had a long-standing attachment to the goth subculture. Both were fans of bands such as Korn, Slipknot and My Chemical Romance, and their favourite film was The Crow. Robert was working for the summer at J&J Ormerod, a local kitchen and bedroom-manufacturing firm, at the time of Sophie's death. The couple's families described them as "goths", and said: "They're both intelligent, sensitive kids. They're not the sort of people to get in trouble, but they have had problems in the past because they stand out."
Brendan Harris, Ryan Herbert, the Hulme brothers and Daniel Mallett
Brendan Desmond Harris and Ryan Stephen Herbert (born 3 December 1991) were aged 15 and 16 respectively at the time of the attack, while brothers Joseph and Daniel Hulme were aged 15 and 17, and Daniel Mallett was 17 at the time. Harris had attended Whitworth Community High School and The Valley Leadership Academy in Bacup. Herbert, who never knew his father, lived with his mother, Christine, and sister, and attended All Saints' Catholic High School in Rawtenstall. Both Harris and Herbert regularly smoked cannabis, and four months prior to the attack on Lancaster and Maltby, both boys had received a conviction for assaulting and stamping on a 16-year-old boy in Stubbylee Park. Joseph and Daniel Hulme lived in nearby Shawforth on a travellers' site, while Daniel Mallett lived with his mother, Tracy, in Bacup. During the trial, Mallett was described in court as the only defendant said to come from a 'good home'.
All five boys – Harris, Herbert, the Hulme brothers and Mallett – were thought to be members of a gang called the 'Bacup Terror Group'. The boys' Bebo pages – which were removed following the attack – featured yellow crime-scene tape in the background and listed their interests as 'GBH'. Before the attack, Herbert had posted a video on YouTube of himself dressed in a black hooded top, walking towards the camera brandishing a wooden stick, posing at local landmarks, and rapping with three other boys on a track titled "Where U From (Bacup)". The song and video were part of a youth project and contained the lyrics: "Enough men die in this town/You mess with GBH, you go down." It was removed from the website after Lancaster's murder.
Attack
On the evening of 10 August 2007, Lancaster and Maltby had been drinking and watching television at a friend's house in Britannia, a suburb of Bacup. They left to walk home at around 11:40pm. On their way home they stopped at a petrol station to buy cigarettes. On the petrol station forecourt a group of teenagers, including Brendan Harris, Ryan Herbert, Joseph Hulme, Daniel Hulme and Daniel Mallett struck up a friendly conversation with them. Lancaster and Maltby decided to join the group of teenagers at an area of Bacup known as the Fudge Factory before they all went to the skate park area of Stubbylee Park. In the park, Lancaster and Maltby were subjected to a vicious mob attack without provocation from Harris, Herbert, Joseph Hulme, Daniel Hulme, and Mallett between 1:10 and 1:20am on 11 August 2007.
All five teenagers beat Maltby to the point of unconsciousness. As he lay on the ground, Lancaster cradled his head in her lap and shouted for help and for the attackers to leave him alone. Brendan Harris and Ryan Herbert then beat Lancaster to the point of unconsciousness and repeatedly kicked and stomped on her head. A 15-year-old witness told police: "They were running over and just kicking her in the head and jumping up and down on her head." One witness used a mobile phone to call for emergency services saying: "We need... we need an ambulance at Bacup Park; this mosher has just been banged because he's a mosher." The Guardian reported that afterwards, "The killers celebrated their attack on the goths – or 'moshers' – by telling friends afterwards that they had 'done summat [something] good', and claiming: 'There's two moshers nearly dead up Bacup park – you wanna see them – they're a right mess.'"
Police said that it was "a sustained attack during the course of which the pair received serious head injuries and their faces were so swollen we could not ascertain which one was female and which one was male". Both were hospitalised as a result of the attack, initially at Rochdale Infirmary. Maltby's injuries left him in a coma and with internal bleeding. He gradually recovered, but had lost memory of the time leading up to and during the attack. Lancaster, in a deep coma, was placed on life support and moved to Fairfield General Hospital in Bury, then to the neurology unit at Hope Hospital (now Salford Royal Hospital) in Salford. During Sophie's time in hospital, her mother, Sylvia, gently waxed her dreadlocks, washed her, and read the Harry Potter books to her in an attempt to wake her up from her coma, before the family made the difficult decision to switch off her life support. The hospital staff determined that she would never regain consciousness, and on 24 August 2007, her life support was terminated.
Arrests and investigation
Lancashire Police arrested five individuals in connection with the attack, but conducted extensive further investigations, as it appeared that up to fifteen people were in the area and may have witnessed or participated in the assault. The police identified the gothic dress of the couple as a possible motivation for the attack. Brendan Harris and Ryan Herbert were remanded in custody, while Joseph Hulme, Daniel Hulme and Daniel Mallett were released on bail. Harris had to be told by the police how serious the incident was, as he was laughing and joking with his mother during his initial police interview. All five boys were charged with causing grievous bodily harm with intent, but following Lancaster's death the Crown Prosecution Service charged all five with Lancaster's murder.
By 5 October 2007, after questioning more than 100 people, the police concluded that they were not expecting to make any more arrests in the case, and although 15–20 people were in the park at some point during the night of the attack, they believed that many were not directly involved, as the area was a regular night time hangout spot for teenagers.
Local residents identified the park as a spot often used by "drunken, violent yobs" guilty of vandalism and under-age drinking. They had asked for measures to be taken about the area before the tragedy occurred. Following the murder, residents called for improved security in the area, but Rossendale Borough Council said park rangers would be too expensive.
Trial and verdict
On 6 September 2007, the five suspects were charged with murder at Burnley Youth Court. Three were released on bail: two boys aged 15 and 17 from Shawforth, and a 17-year-old boy from Bacup. On 18 October at Burnley Youth Court, all five were summoned to appear at Preston Crown Court. A preliminary hearing was held on 31 October 2007, where all five were charged with the murder of Lancaster and grievous bodily harm with intent for the assault on Maltby. A further plea and case management hearing was ordered by Judge Anthony Russell QC for 14 December. The judge also indicated a provisional trial date, on both allegations, of 10 March 2008. At the hearing on 14 December 2007, the five accused pleaded not guilty on both charges.
At the beginning of the trial on 10 March 2008, all five boys pleaded guilty to the charge of grievous bodily harm with intent, Ryan Herbert pleaded guilty to murder, Brendan Harris pleaded not guilty to murder, while the murder charges against the other three were dropped. Lancaster's mother complained to the police that the parents of the Hulmes and Daniel Mallett were sniggering at her outside the court before the trial began. As the trial opened the prosecution told the hearing: "Sophie and Robert were singled out not for anything they had said or done, but because they looked and dressed differently." The jury heard extensive descriptions of the severity of the attack from a number of witnesses and through a recorded phone conversation taken at the time.
At the conclusion of the trial on 27 March 2008, Brendan Harris was found guilty of murder, and the judge allowed the names of both Harris and Herbert, which had been withheld during the trial, to be made public. Detective Superintendent Mick Gradwell of Lancashire Police said it was one of the most violent murders he had come across in his career: "I do not think Herbert and Harris have recognised how violent the attack was. They have just done it without thinking, but they seemed to have enjoyed it, and carried on remorselessly kicking at two very defenceless people who were unable to protect themselves because of the level of violence inflicted upon them. [...] I am very critical of some of the parents involved. I really don't think they have taken completely seriously how repulsive this incident was." He said that when Harris was initially interviewed about the assaults he was "laughing and joking" with his mother.
Sentencing in the case was set for 28 April 2008. Both Harris and Herbert were sentenced to life imprisonment with the trial judge recommending that Harris should serve at least 18 years and Herbert at least 16 years and three months. In his closing remarks the judge described the attack as "feral thuggery" which raised questions about the "sort of society which exists in this country". He added: "This was a terrible case which has shocked and outraged all who have heard about it. At least wild animals, when they hunt in packs, have a legitimate reason for so doing, to obtain food. You have none and your behaviour on that night degrades humanity itself." The three other defendants were also sentenced for their role in the attack. Brothers Joseph and Daniel Hulme, and Daniel Mallett, who had all earlier pleaded guilty to grievous bodily harm with intent on Maltby, were jailed. Mallett was sentenced to four years and four months, and the Hulme brothers for five years and ten months each.
Subsequent legal developments
On 13 June 2008, it was reported that all the defendants were appealing against the sentences for their convictions. The appeal was heard on 7 October 2008 with an announcement that the result would be released at a later date. On 29 October, it was announced that Ryan Herbert would have his minimum term reduced from 16 years and three months to 15 years and six months. This was a reduction of nine months after the appeal judges ruled that not enough allowance had been made for his guilty plea during the initial trial. Brendan Harris and the three other defendants had their appeals dismissed.