Teenage killers of schoolgirl Brianna Ghey are jailed for life
girl and a boy who murdered teenager Brianna Ghey have been jailed for life and given minimum terms of 22 and 20 years before parole.
Scarlett Jenkinson and Eddie Ratcliffe, both 16, carried out the “disturbing” plan to murder Brianna, 16, in a “frenzied and ferocious” knife attack.
The judge said the murder was “brutal” and “sadistic” and that a secondary motive was Brianna’s trans identity.
Both aged 15 at the time, they have been identified for the first time as they were sentenced yesterday after a senior judge lifted a ban on the press naming them.
Anxious and vulnerable, unsuspecting transgender schoolgirl Brianna was stabbedwithahuntingknife28 times in her head, neck, chest and back after being lured to Linear Park, Culcheth, a village near Warrington, Cheshire, on February 11 last year.
Jenkinson, Brianna’s school friend, whose parents are teachers and lives close to the park in Culcheth, and Ratcliffe, from Leigh, whose mother is a skiing instructor and father runs his own businesses, had denied murder and blamed the other for the killing, described as “horrific” by detectives.
Jenkinson,currently held in Adel Beck secure children’s home in Leeds, was given a minimum term of 22 years before parole by trial judge Mrs Justice Yip.
Ratcliffe, currently held at Barton Moss secure children’s home in Salford, was given a minimum of 20 years before parole.
Ratcliffe, diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder and who is non-verbal, and Jenkina son, diagnosed with traits of autism and ADHD, both faced a mandatory life sentence for murder.
Brianna’s parents told the sentencing hearing the pair should never be released from prison, with her mother Esther Ghey, inset, saying she felt her daughter’s killers still pose a danger to society.
In a victim impact statement read to the court, Ms Ghey said: “I don’t believe that someone who is so disturbed and obsessed with murderandtorturewould ever be able to be rehabilitated.
“I have moments where I feel sorry for them because they have also ruined their own lives, but I have to remember that they felt no empathy for Brianna when they left her bleeding to death after their premeditated and vicious attack, which was carried out not because Brianna had done anything wrong, but just because one hated trans people and the other thought it would be fun.”
Brianna’s father Peter Spooner said “no amount of time spent in prison will be enough for these monsters”, branding them “pure evil”.
Intelligent,“highfunctioning” andcomingfromnormalbackgrounds,thetrialheardjenkinson and Ratcliffe had a fascination for violence, torture and murderanda“thirstforkilling”.
Neither had been in trouble with police before.
They were discussing Brianna’s murder for weeks, detailed in Jenkinson’s handwritten murder plan and phone messages found by detectives.
Jenkinson claimed while she enjoyed fantasies of killing Brianna she never intended any of it to become reality.
Ratcliffe said he played along or treated it all as a joke and never wanted to harm anyone.
Jurors disagreed.