Lorraine Thorpe was 15 when she killed her dad and his friend in 2009, telling police at the time: ‘You’ll find my footprint on my dad’
Britain’s youngest female double murderer – who smothered her dad and tortured his friend to death – has been cleared to move to an open jail .
Lorraine Thorpe was 15 when she carried out the killings in 2009 and was jailed for at least 14 years, telling police at the time: “You’ll find my footprint on my dad.” Thorpe and older man Paul Clarke, 41, who she met through a social circle of drinkers, murdered Rosalyn Hunt, 41, after a row over a dog.
Rosalyn, also part of the drinking group, was beaten to death after Clarke and Thorpe subjected her to horrific torture, which saw them attack her with a cheese grater and then rub salt in the wounds. Rosalyn also was beaten, stamped on, had her ribs broken, and was whipped with dog chains.
Days later, the pair decided to murder Thorpe’s father Desmond Thorpe, 43, to silence him from implicating them in the first murder to police. Officers quickly linked the murders and arrested both Thorpe and Clarke.
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In 2014, Clarke was found dead in his prison cell at HMP Whitemoor, Cambridgeshire, days before a programme about the murders was due to be aired. He was serving life imprisonment with a minimum term of 27 years. The Parole Board said Thorpe, now 31, should not be released but could be transferred to an open prison.
Thorpe became Britain’s youngest convicted female double murderer after the pair’s trial at Ipswich Crown Court.
In a decision released on Tuesday, the Parole Board said Thorpe needed to be tested in less restrictive prison conditions before she could be considered for release.
“After considering the circumstances of her offending, the progress made while in custody and the evidence presented at the hearing, the panel agreed that Ms Thorpe should not be released,” the board said.
The panel noted Thorpe’s “general maturation” and “the fact that she had not evidenced violence or aggression for many years”, adding that her “risk of violence towards others had reduced by her own actions in custody.” She will be eligible for another parole review in two years.
Sentencing the teenager at the Old Bailey in 2010. Mr Justice Saunders, QC, described Thorpe as “stubborn and manipulative”.
He said she was a violent young woman after a childhood spent caring for her alcoholic father, living in squalid flats or tents, surrounded by a gang of drunks.
The judge said: “She appears to have been left with no real understanding of what is right and what is wrong. She finds violence funny and entertaining. No one who has heard the evidence in this case could doubt for a moment that she had immense diffi-culties in her life.
“To describe her upbringing as not being a proper upbringing would be an understatement. It has left her a violent young woman and a highly manipulative young woman as well.”
The trial heard that Thorpe and her father had moved in with Clarke along with a gang of drunks. The judge described Clarke as a “bully”.
Both Clarke and Thorpe chose not to give evidence and denied both cases of murder.
Mary Bell, detained at the age of 11 in 1968 for the manslaughter of two boys aged three and four, remains the youngest female killer.
