By Chinta Puxley, The Canadian Press

WINNIPEG - Two teens who plotted to corral students in a Winnipeg school auditorium and randomly open fire apologized Thursday for proposing the rampage.

Lawyers asked that the 17-year-old male and his 18-year-old girlfriend, who have pleaded guilty to conspiring to commit murder, be handed a two-year jail term. Neither can be identified under a court order.

"I want to apologize to the public," the young man told a sentencing hearing. "I really screwed up. I'm trying to better myself."

The girl then addressed the court. "I wish to apologize to the community and all that I have affected with this act of mine," she said as people wept. "I'm sorry."

Crown and defence lawyers are both recommending that the two years in jail be followed by three years on supervised probation.

The teens have agreed to be sentenced as adults although lawyers are asking that they serve their jail terms in a youth facility. As adults, they will have criminal records.

The judge wasn't convinced.

Brian Corrin asked the Crown to consider the matter further and reserved his decision.

Crown Attorney Susan Baragar conceded that the details of the plot are chilling. But she said the recommended sentence was "reasonable and just" given the age of the offenders and the fact that they don't have criminal records and have shown a willingness for treatment.

"It was not carried out," she said. "It was a plan."

The plan, detailed in an agreed statement of facts, was hatched last year when the two teens started to devise a "mass killing of people" in Manitoba. The pair stole guns and ammunition being kept at home of the young man's grandmother in Portage la Prairie, Man., and kept them in the girl's closet.

They made Molotov cocktails, which they also stored in the young girl's closet.

They intended to go to a Winnipeg high school and order office staff at gunpoint to announce over the PA system that all students should proceed to the auditorium. Once the students were gathered there, the two teens planned to lock the door and "shoot anyone who attempted to escape.

"They would light and throw Molotov cocktails into the crowd of trapped people," the statement said.

The teens would escape through a trap door on the stage and into a waiting car. They would shoot at police and random people while they went to the University of Manitoba where they would "continue shooting people until they got tired.

"Then they would kill themselves or let the police shoot them," according to the statement.

The two were arrested in January after a friend anonymously tipped off police upon learning of the plot.

Both were described by psychiatrists as "troubled" kids who were bullied by others and had difficulty making friends.

But both are less angry, have shown a willingness to work through counselling and shouldn't pose a high risk to the community if released down the road, according to statements from their treating psychiatrists.

"The fellow you see in the (prisoner's) dock is not the young fellow I first met," his defence lawyer Greg Brodsky told the court. "He's an entirely different person than was taken into custody at the beginning."

Defence lawyer Jeff Gindin said his client has also progressed during the 10 months she has spent in custody.

"There has been a great improvement in her attitude, her insight and her degree of remorse," he said.

Family members who attended the hearing declined to comment to reporters, as did defence lawyers after the decision was reserved.

Baragar said she was disappointed not to have a decision immediately, but understood that the judge would want to spend more time pouring over all the documents.

"I'm not entirely surprised."