Lorraine Thorpe

Lorraine Thorpe (born 1994) is a British woman who is Britain's youngest female double murderer. Over nine days in August 2009, Thorpe tortured and murdered two people in Ipswich, one of whom was her own father. She came to national attention upon her conviction in 2010, when it was noted that she had only been 15 years old at the time of the killings. She was sentenced to life imprisonment with a minimum tariff of 14 years' imprisonment, while her accomplice in the murders was issued with a 27-year minimum tariff. She remains imprisoned at HM Prison Foston Hall, having been refused parole in October 2023.

Background Thorpe was raised in Ipswich, Suffolk. She grew up in poverty, living with her father in a number of "squalid" flats and sometimes in tents. She became associated with a group of middle-aged alcoholics who often engaged in violence and regularly fought with each other. The group were also thieves and repeatedly stole in order to be able to pay for alcohol. Thorpe came to the attention of social services, but they could not keep track of her, and every time she was placed in a specially assigned school, she went back to her father. Her frail father was likewise an alcoholic, and Thorpe had the responsibility of caring for him from a very young age. Her upbringing was said to have left her as a violent young woman who was also highly manipulative.

Her father Days after the murder of Hunt, the pair decided to murder Lorraine's own 43-year-old father Desmond Thorpe in order to silence him from implicating them in the first murder to police. Lorraine smothered her disabled father with a cushion before kicking him as he lay prone on the floor. His body was found only hours after the discovery of Hunt's. Police immediately announced that they suspected the murders were linked and arrested both Clarke and Lorraine.

Trial Clarke and Thorpe were convicted of the murders at Ipswich Crown Court on 3 August 2010. In his sentencing remarks, Sweeney said:

quote|She was responsible for protracted kicking, punching and stamping on Rosalyn, who was not fit to defend herself effectively from the outset. By the end of those attacks she was completely helpless. Far from being sorry, Lorraine appears to have gloried in it, describing to her friends at one stage how she stamped on Rosalyn's head[...] The only possible explanation for [Desmond Thorpe's] death can be the fear that he would go and tell the police what happened to Rosalyn Hunt[...] I don't accept that she was entirely under the control of Mr Clark. She is someone who can be quite stubborn and wilful and is capable of being highly manipulative herself[...] Her story is an appalling one." Her case was compared to those of Sharon Carr, Britain's youngest female murderer who killed aged only 12 in 1992, and Mary Bell, who was 11 when she killed two young boys in Newcastle in 1968 (although younger than Thorpe, Bell was convicted of manslaughter not murder, meaning Thorpe is Britain's youngest female double murderer).

As of September 2019, Thorpe was imprisoned in HM Prison Foston Hall. In March 2023, it was reported that Thorpe would have her first parole hearing. Thorpe, who declined to take an active role in the parole board's case review process, was denied release in October 2023, but remains eligible for parole review in the future. On 8 September 2014, Channel 5 aired a documentary on Thorpe as part of its Countdown to Murder series. The series 2 episode was titled "Killer Schoolgirl" and featured interviews with Rosalyn Hunt's brother as well as officers of the investigative team. On 26 March 2017, an episode of the CBS Reality series Teens Who Kill documented Thorpe's crimes. On 24 May 2019, an episode of Britain's Deadliest Kids aired that focused on Thorpe. On 7 October 2019, a series 2 episode of the Crime+ Investigation programme Murdertown documented Thorpe's crimes. It was the fourth episode of series 2.