 Davis also noted the unusual situation in that " a gang was involved and that two females were the sadistic leaders . " Following the convictions of Powell and McNeilly , there was wider press speculation about " girl gangs " and the rise in violent crime committed by young women , and " the probation service and ex @-@ offender organisations found themselves bombarded with requests from journalists seeking out case histories to illustrate this apparent explosion of LA @-@ style girl @-@ gang culture on the streets of Britain . " Mary <unk> , a senior probation officer at the Inner London Probation Service Women 's Centre , dismissed the notion , saying : " One woman does something somewhere and immediately there 's a great moral panic . People think there 's an epidemic of it . " However , statistics and research produced by the National Association of Probation Officers did show " an increase in the number of women jailed for offences involving violence . " The association 's assistant general secretary Harry Fletcher said that , like the women involved in the Capper murder , the group is " characterised by neglect , personal abuse , drug or alcohol abuse and low self @-@ esteem . Many have themselves been the victim of violence . The problem needs help rather than incarceration . " In one of the " starkest signs of change " there was evidence that " in the 15 — 17 age group , girls are more likely to take pleasure in violence than boys , an indication we may face far more female violence in the future as these girls grow up . " Despite the focus on the female perpetrators around the time of the crime and trial Davis pointed out that , in cases like this which involved female and male sadists , " the female 's role is invariably forgotten over time . This was apparent when Dudson 's appeals were reported in the national press . Manchester newspapers named all of the killers involved , but most less @-@ localised reports simply referred to the ' violent gang ' he belonged to , and it probably wouldn 't have occurred to newer readers that this gang included two merciless female sadists who thought that an allegedly stolen duffle coat was an excuse to torture someone to death . " 
