Brianna’s mother finds ally fighting online child harms

THE mother of murdered teenager Brianna Ghey has joined forces with Molly Russell’s father to campaign against online harms to children.

In an emotional interview, Ian Russell, whose 14-year-old daughter Molly took her own life in 2017, spoke to Esther Ghey about the role that social media played in the deaths of both their children.

Ms Ghey’s 16-year-old daughter Brianna, who was transgender, was murdered one year ago this week by two teenagers.

She said that her daughter’s mental wellbeing had been impacted by harmful content that she saw online before her death.

She also believes that Brianna would still be alive if her killers had not been able to access violent content on the internet as they plotted her murder.

Speaking with Mr Russell, whose daughter had spent months browsing dark content on social media before her death, she told the BBC: “I didn’t have a clue what Brianna was looking at online.

“It was only after she was taken from us that I found out that she was accessing self-harm sites and eating disorder sites.”

Mr Russell said they had “both lost children who had seen harmful things online and, in your case, there were other children involved who had been motivated to murder by what they’d seen online”.

The pair have pledged to work together to combat the online harms facing children, as Mr Russell said that he had met other parents who had lost children with a connection to harmful web content.

“It’s really important for us all to come together and be that louder voice and to call for change,” Ms Ghey said.

Mr Russell added: “It’s almost impossible for a parent to monitor and mirror and know what their children are doing and keep up with all the evolutions in all the tech platforms.”

Speaking to the Today programme earlier yesterday, Ms Ghey said the Online Safety Act, which became law in October, does not go far enough to protect children.

She has called for mobile phones to be made specifically for those under 16 to protect them from online harms, and she also believes more responsibility should be placed on big tech companies for youngsters’ safety.

She told Mr Russell that while she does not see the issues of online harms ending “any time soon”, it will be “absolutely great” to work with him on the campaign.