‘ Scarlett’s mum hasn’t opened her curtains since the arrest, but no one here blames her’
From a mother whose children went to the same school as Brianna’s killers, a surprising insight into how the village has reacted
READING the statement from scarlett Jenkinson’s family in the aftermath of her sentencing for the murder of fellow teenager Brianna Ghey, I felt a terrible pang of sadness.
Within it lay an apology for the distress scarlett’s wickedness had caused their community.
‘All of our thoughts are for Brianna and her family,’ it said. ‘The last 12 months have been beyond our worst nightmares as we have come to realise the brutal truth of scarlett’s actions. We agree with the jury’s verdict, the judge’s sentence and the decision to name the culprits.
‘To all of Brianna’s family and friends, our community and everyone else that has been affected by this horror, we are truly sorry.’
As someone who lives in Culcheth, the quiet, leafy Cheshire village now forever tied to a heinous crime, that message spoke directly to me, my friends and my neighbours. And for the umpteenth time since we realised Brianna Ghey’s killer had grown up alongside our own children, my heart ached for scarlett’s mum.
Much has been said about the dignity of Brianna’s mother, esther, who has shown a level of empathy toward the parents of her child’s killers that almost defies belief.
This is a woman who lives with the knowledge that her beloved daughter was stabbed with a hunting knife 28 times after being lured to a park by scarlett, and fellow killer eddie Ratcliffe, both now 16. Despite all that esther reached out to scarlett’s mother to say that if she wants to talk, then she’s here for her. It was an extraordinarily compassionate response.
And yet there’s a similarly surprising level of compassion for scarlett’s mum here, too.
I don’t know her personally but have heard from others that she’s a wholly decent woman. As a friend said to me in the very early days of the investigation, three mothers lost their children that weekend.
The first I knew that something truly awful had happened that afternoon in February last year, was as I drove home from doing the big weekend food shop at the village sainsbury’s. Appearing from nowhere, one police car after another sped past me down the quiet country lane leading to Culcheth linear Park, lights flashing, sirens blaring.
As I put my groceries away, my phone started pinging with messages from friends who knew I regularly walked my dog there. They all said the same thing – they’d heard a woman had been stabbed and for me to text back AsAP to confirm it wasn’t me.
Meanwhile, scarlett’s brother was texting her – his little sister – urging her to stay away from park, just five minutes’ walk from the family home, because the attacker hadn’t been caught.
It was hard to settle that evening, as my husband and I wondered what might have happened had I walked my dog that afternoon instead of in the morning. Or if one of our two children had taken him out instead to enjoy the park on what was an unusually mild and sunny late winter’s day.
Culcheth is a quiet, rural middleclass village surrounding a large village green. It has a children’s playground, a selection of small independent shops, bars and restaurants – the only branded store is sainsbury’s. Police cars zooming through is unusual, to say the least.
That night however the constant sound of police helicopters circling overhead made it impossible to sleep. A neighbour texted saying it felt like the village was under siege. scarlett’s mum, oblivious to what had actually happened, would probably have felt similarly afraid. We heard it wasn’t a woman, but a teenage girl who had died – and that two teenagers had been arrested on suspicion of murder. By the time the kids arrived home from class on the Monday afternoon – almost all the kids in the village attend the same school scarlett and eddie went to, Culcheth High school – the arrested teens were all they could talk about.
As the rest of the country waited almost another year for these children to be unmasked, we already knew exactly what evil looked like. When a child does wrong, society is horribly quick to blame their upbringing. Not so in this case. No one, certainly not locally, blamed scarlett’s family – two loving parents and three older brothers.
Instead, people talked of how scarlett came from a decent family – her mother emma was a school teacher; her father Brian worked as a tradesman, they had a pet dog – and how, through terrifying logic, this suggested any one of us could find ourselves in the same wretched position with one of our own children.
And so our collective hearts broke for the woman who lived among us and whose pain we simply couldn’t begin to imagine.
Of course, at that point, the true darkness of the crime hadn’t come out. We mothers, especially those of us with children at scarlett and eddie’s school, were desperately trying to come up with a narrative around what had happened that we could somehow live with. We settled on a version that had the three kids falling out over something – probably a boy – and that a knife had been produced.
We heard frightening rumours about satanism and scarlett having dark obsessions, but put those down to the local kids with overactive imaginations.
But then, during the trial, the truth turned out to be more appalling than anything anyone – adult or child – might have made up. The kill list scarlett made with the names of five children on it. The truly terrible parts of the dark web she was said to frequent.
‘Pain we simply couldn’t begin to imagine’
‘She may want to hide but doesn’t have to’
The handwritten murder plan, and previous attempt on Brianna’s life she had made by feeding her ibuprofen tablets.
And again, we imagined scarlett’s mum’s horror and shame. After all, we felt strangely bonded to her – as you do when you shop in the same supermarket and walk your dog in the same park.
Most disturbing of all was the fact that our kids went to the same school – scarlett had been on a temporary placement at a different school but was due to return to Culcheth High after Christmas. This left the chilling question: ‘What if scarlett had picked out my child?’
eventually I know I will let go of these dark thoughts, but I don’t imagine poor scarlett’s mum will ever know peace again. she hasn’t opened her curtains since her daughter was arrested.
linear Park is forever changed – teenagers don’t hang out among the trees anymore. I pass the bench where it happened most days with my dog. At first it was hard not to cry. Now, I feel bewildered more than anything.
I also wonder whether scarlett’s mum will ever walk her dog down the park that cuts through our village again.
Maybe one day. But for now, I just wish she would open her curtains and crack a window to let in the air and the light. she might want to hide, but she doesn’t have to. Honestly, we just want her to be OK.