London - Two schoolgirls found guilty of brutally murdering a pensioner in her home yesterday lost their appeals against conviction. Lawyers for the pair had argued in the Court of Appeal that the facts of the case were more consistent with a "robbery gone wrong" than with any intent to kill or cause serious bodily harm, and that the girls should have been dealt with on the basis of diminished responsibility.
Ms Lily Lilley (71) choked on her dentures after being attacked and gagged at her home in Failsworth, Greater Manchester, in September 1998. At the trial in July 1999, Manchester Crown Court heard that the girls, both now 17 but only 15 and 14 at the time, had befriended the victim and been invited into her house for a cup of tea. The prosecution's case was that they intended to take over her house and use it to entertain men. They stuffed her body in a wheelie-bin, pushed it while laughing and giggling through the streets and dumped it in the Rochdale Canal.