THEY subjected a young woman with learning difficulties to three days of sadistic physical and sexual torture.

Now Darren Hodgkinson, 18, Chelsea Mills, 16, and Chelsea Williams, 14, are behind bars for their part in the horrifying ordeal in Southampton.

The Daily Echo overturned a court ban on naming the two girls after arguing that the public had the right to know their identity given the seriousness of the crimes.

Hodgkinson, of Macarthur Crescent, Midanbury, described as the ringleader, was told he must serve at least four years before being considered for parole. He will only be released when it is decided he is no longer a risk to the public.

Southampton Crown Court heard how Hodgkinson had a string of previous offences, including holding a disabled young man against his will overnight, taunting and beating him so badly he was hospitalised with fractured ribs.

Mills, of Windrush Road, Wimpson, who was described as being “deeply in love” with Hodgkinson, was given a two-year detention and training order.

Williams, of Derby Road, St Mary’s, was given an 18-month detention and training order for her part in the orgy of violence.

The trio were convicted at a three-day trial where they denied throughout two counts of causing their victim to engage in sexual activity without her consent and one each of kidnap as well as causing actual bodily harm.

Judge Peter Ralls said the group befriended the unsuspecting and vulnerable woman and invited to her Williams’ home.

They then began mocking the woman and then stopped her escaping from the house.

They punched and slapped their victim, leaving her with massive swellings and bruises all over her body.

Judge Ralls said: “At the end of the incident she was so badly bruised that people thought she was a black person.”

Nail varnish and cream was also rubbed into her hair, which was then shaved off along with her eyebrows.

After this the group decided to play a “nasty game of truth and dare” which was rigged against their victim so she would have to carry out obscene acts.

She was then stripped and sexually humiliated before being assaulted by Mills. She was then imprisoned in a wardrobe.

The next day Hodgkinson got out his lighter and burned her hands and face until her skin blistered.

After three days the woman managed to escape and a relative reported what had happened to the police.

Judge Ralls told the trio: “This poor woman may never recover from the psychological damage – you picked on her because she was odd and slightly unusual for no motivation other than to satisfy some depraved wish to cause harm.

“People in this city might be quite horrified to know that there are people living amongst them who behave in such a depraved fashion.”

Rupert Pardoe, mitigating for Hodgkinson, described his client as having “hideously gone off the rails”

during his teenage years but his spell in adult jail on remand had sobered him.

He said: “When I got here today, he expressed remorse.”

Mills’ barrister, Chris Bower, described an upbringing where she witnessed abusive behaviour that “immunised her” to bullying and violence. But he said after being arrested she was shocked by what she had done.

“She can’t come to terms with what she allowed herself to become involved in,” he said.

Mark Ashley, mitigating for Williams, said she had a chaotic home life, reflected in the fact that the offence was allowed to take place at her house.

However, her maternal grandfather had now stepped in to look after her.