Head backs Brianna mum’s phone battle
THE headteacher of Brianna Ghey’s school has backed her mother’s calls for greater safeguards on children’s mobile phones.
Emma Mills said urgent regulation was needed to protect them from the ‘sinister horrors’ found online.
Brianna and her killers, dark web-obsessed Scarlett Jenkinson and Eddie Ratcliffe, were pupils at Birchwood Community High School in Warrington, Cheshire,
Ms Mills said she agreed with Esther Ghey that mobile phone firms and tech companies needed to back parents’ demands to make the internet a safer place for their children. ‘ In the real world and at school we have policies, laws and regulations to protect children,’ she said.
‘Outside of school, however, they are now routinely being exposed to this online world, where some of them are spending the majority of their day, where there is nothing – no laws or systems in place. This needs to change urgently.
‘The digital world, used correctly, opens countless opportunities, and builds knowledge but I don’t think anyone could have ever imagined the sinister horrors that the internet and social media would develop or blow up the way it has. Misused, the online world has become a dark place and poses a real threat, especially to vulnerable young people.’
Ms Ghey has launched a petition calling for legislation to help parents control what their children can access online through smartphones. In an emotional interview with the BBC, she said she wanted firms to be more responsible and provide under-16s only with phones without social media apps.
Ms Ghey called for all children’s phones to have software that links to their parents’ devices and alerts them if their children are searching for harmful or questionable content.
Brianna, 16, was killed in February last year by Ratcliffe and Jenkinson, who was moved to Birchwood after being excluded from nearby Culcheth High School for giving a younger pupil drugs. The pair, then 15, plotted Brianna’s murder over vile messages they shared on WhatsApp and Snap Chat. Jenkinson, who binged on horror films during the pandemic, had also downloaded a special browser on to her device to watch real-life torture and murder on the dark web.
Ms Ghey, a food technologist, said she had no hate for her daughter’s killers and has offered to meet Jenkinson’s mother, saying it is hard to monitor teenagers online.
Yesterday the Prime Minister praised Ms Ghey’s humanity and compassion, which he described as ‘frankly extraordinary’.
But Rishi Sunak stopped short of backing her campaign, saying the Government’s Online Safety Act was the priority. He added: ‘That means the regulator now has tough new powers to control what is exposed to children online.
‘And if the big social media companies do not comply with that, the regulator is able to levy very significant fines on them and the priority now is making sure that Act is up and running.’
Katharine Birbalsingh – dubbed the ‘UK’s toughest headteacher’ – said that pupils cannot handle social media. ‘All teachers will tell you every altercation starts on social media, all the bullying starts on social media. My advice is to get a brick phone for your child that means they have the convenience of texting and phoning them without the dangers,’ said Mrs Birbalsingh, of Michaela Community School in Wembley, north London.
‘The problem with a smart phone, as Brianna’s mother has so bravely said, it’s impossible to watch your child on the internet at all times.’
Ms Ghey’s petition is on www.change.org.
‘Sinister horrors of the internet’