A TEENAGE girl who was abducted by her boyfriend and then subjected to a fierce assault by two women died after she was doused with petrol and set alight.

Debra Carne, 17, had been expecting to spend a romantic evening with her new boyfriend, Steven Wood, when he collected her in his car in July 2002. Instead, he drove to a remote layby where they were met by Emma Last, now 19, and Kerry Bauer, now 21.

Both women, neither of who knew Debra, were friends of Nicole Hollinshead, now 19, a former girlfriend of Wood who was jealous of his relationship with Debra.

They pulled Debra from the car and dragged her into undergrowth, punching and kicking her. Bauer produced a litre bottle of petrol and doused Debra with the contents.

Last later boasted that she had used a lighter to ignite the fluid and sang “burn baby, burn” as Debra was engulfed in a fireball.

Last, from Braintree, Essex, who had admitted murder before the six-week trial of her fellow defendants at Chelmsford Crown Court began, was ordered to be detained at Her Majesty’s pleasure with a recommendation that she serve 20 years by a judge yesterday.

Bauer, from Braintree, was jailed for life with a recommendation that she serve at least 17 years. She was pregnant at the time she killed Debra.

Hollinshead, from Halstead, did not take part in the murder but later drove the other three to heathland near Chelmsford where they burnt clothes worn in the attack and Debra’s handbag and phone, was jailed for five years for conspiracy to inflict grievous bodily harm.

Wood, 23, a baker from Halstead, bought the petrol used in the attack and was given an eight-year sentence for manslaughter. He has attempted suicide while on remand.

In court yesterday, Mr Justice Nelson said: “When she was set alight, Debra Carne was either alive — a thought so awful one would want to banish it from one’s mind — or asphyxiated by restraint but still breathing.”

He said the four defendants had planned and inflicted “a particularly cruel death” on their victim. “The circumstances of Debra Carne’s death were horrific and the motive for killing her so trivial that it defies explanation,” he said.

The court had been told that the three girls had planned revenge on Debra, whom they saw as a love rival, during a weekend of drinking and smoking cannabis.

On the evening of the murder, Debra had gone out with Wood, who only days before had told her that he loved her. He then drove her a few miles to the layby where Bauer and Last were lying in wait.

Debra’s mother, Heather Knight, said outside the court that she thought of her daughter’s death every day: “The pain and emptiness is unbearable and why — because four selfish, evil kids took matters into their own hands.”

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