Two teenage girls who beat a frail and vulnerable woman to death during an attack of “gratuitous degradation” are taking legal action to prevent their identities being made public.

The teenagers were aged 13 and 14 when they were jailed for life with a minimum of 15-years in 2016 for the murder of 39-year-old Angela Wrightson, in her Hartlepool home.

Sentencing them Mr Justice Globe condemned their actions as “cowardly” as he revealed that Miss Wrightson had suffered 70 separate slash injuries and more than 50 blows to the head as she had desperately tried to defend herself.

But the judge banned the media from naming the pair on the grounds that being identified could lead to their suicide.

Now legal teams for the killers have obtained an interim injunction extending their anonymity, although one of them has turned 18.