Brianna Ghey's teen killers named and pictured for 1st time as judge lifts order
The twisted teenagers who murdered Brianna Ghey can be named and pictured for the first time after a reporting restriction was lifted.
Scarlett Jenkinson and Eddie Ratcliffe, both 16, were convicted in December of the murder of the transgender student, also 16 after she was fatally stabbed 28 times in a frenzied attack. This afternoon, the pair were handed a 42-year sentence. Jenkinson was today told she must serve at least 22 years and Ratcliffe will serve at least 20 years.
The identities of the pair were originally protected under law due to their ages, but the judge opted to lift this. After the two teenagers were found guilty on December 20, Scarlett Jenkinson and Eddie Ratcliffe,Honourable Mrs Justice Yip announced that the media would be able to name them on the day they were sentenced.
Scarlett Jenkinson and Eddie Ratcliffe, both 16, can now be named as the killers of teenager Brianna Ghey (PA)Cheshire Police have also released their custody photos. Referred to as Girl X and Boy Y during the trial, the then-15-year-olds lured Brianna to Culcheth Linear Park, near Warrington, on February 11 last year, before murdering her.
At the start of sentencing today, Jenkinson has admitted for the first time stabbing Brianna. During the trial, she maintained that it was Radcliffe who had stabbed Brianna. Deanna Heer KC, prosecuting, told Manchester Crown Court the 16-year-old had been seen by a psychiatrist after she was convicted of murder last December and made “admissions”.
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The moment Scarlett Jenkinson was arrested (PA)
Eddie Ratcliffe was named by the judge today
Scarlett Jenkinson has been named by the judge todayShe said: "She said Eddie had thrown Brianna to the floor and stabbed her three or four times then he panicked and said he did not want to kill her, so she carried on and stabbed her a number of times. When asked how many, she answered, ‘A lot.’ She was satisfied and excited by what she was doing.”
Police released videos showing the moment both Jenkinson and Ratcliffe were arrested. Jenkinson is heard saying "how come I am a suspect" as she was arrested over the murder of Brianna. During Ratcliffe's arrest, he said "I can explain".
Jenkinson kept secret notes on her dark fantasies of death, torture, murder and serial killers in notebooks in her bedroom at the family home. Photographs released by police today showed pages in a notebook Jenkinson kept. On this page, she kept notes about serial killer Jeffery Dahmer. It bullet points charecteristics and things about Dahmer, such as how he killed and disposed of bodies. Dahmer killed and dismembered 17 people between 1978 and 1991.
Eddie Ratcliffe was seen boarding a bus not long after stabbing Brianna Ghey to death (Cheshire Police)Additional videos released today show the moment Ratcliffe casually got on his bus home after killing Brianna.
During sentencing today, Ms Heer, prosecuting, told the court: "The prosecution would submit that there is evidence which is capable of proving that this offence was motivated at least in part by hostility towards Brianna's transgender identity. In Eddie's case there was evidence that he spoke about Brianna in disparaging terms with respect to her transgender identity."
Ms Heer argues he was motivated to kill Brianna as a result of 'transphobic attitudes'. She says Jenkinson didn't use that language to the same extent. Ms Heer adds: "It can be inferred, the prosecution say, that she encouraged Eddie to kill Brianna knowing that his transphobic attitude would make it more likely that he would agree to do so."
Reading a statement to the court, Brianna’s father Peter Spooner said being the father of a transgender child had been “a difficult thing to deal with” but he had been “proud to gain another beautiful daughter”.
The notebook belonging to Scarlett Jenkinson with notes about serial killer Jeffery Dahmer (PA)In the statement, Ms Ghey said the “hardest thing” to come to terms with was finding out that one of those charged with Brianna’s murder was someone she believed to be her daughter’s friend.
They had planned out the killing for weeks beforehand - originally setting a different date - and had a 'kill list' with other classmates’ names on it. The pair - who their trial heard were obsessed with violence, torture and death - were arrested within four days of the murder.
Today it was heard that Jenkinson drew up a second “kill list” of staff at the secure youth accommodation where she is being held. Ms Heer said: “Another kill list was found at the secure unit which refers to names of people caring for her.”
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Ms Heer said Dr Richard Church, a consultant forensic psychiatrist, had examined Jenkinson and concluded she did not have a mental illness but presents with a severe “conduct dissocial disorder with limited pro-social emotions”. Ms Heer concluded: “In Scarlett’s case, she knew what she was doing was wrong and she knew it was very wrong.” In Ratcliffe’s case, Dr Michael Crawford, another consultant forensic psychiatrist, concluded he has a mild form of autism and selective mutism.
The court had previously heard they had been friends since the age of 11 and had drawn up a list of five people they wanted to kill, including Brianna. Jurors were told Brianna had been the victim of a “sustained and violent” assault. She was knifed repeatedly in the head, neck, back and chest and died at the scene after suffering “catastrophic blood loss”.
Brianna was murdered in February last year (PA)
Brianna was stabbed to death in broad daylight (Cheshire Police / SWNS)Phone messages sent between the killers revealed their blood lust. Girl X, who was attracted to and obsessed with Brianna, wrote: “‘I want to stab her at least once even if she's dead jus coz it's fun lol.”
She boasted of watching torture films on the ‘dark web’ and police found notes in her bedroom about serial killers, including Jeffrey Dahmer, Richard Ramirez and Harold Shipman. They also discovered a plan of how she and Boy Y would kill Brianna, after persuading her to join them in Culcheth. The handwritten note was headed: "Saturday 11th February 2023. Victim: Brianna Ghey."
Jenkinson, from Warrington, and Ratcliffe, from Leigh, Greater Manchester, both claimed they were innocent and blamed each other for inflicting the fatal blows. But prosecutors said it did not matter who had wielded the knife as they were both “equally guilty”. After the verdicts, Det Supt Mike Evans, head of Cheshire CID, said: “It was their intent for Brianna to meet her death that day at their hands. As to who did what, I am not sure we will ever know.” He added: “These are two very warped individuals to have done what they have done. They killed because they wanted to prove that they could and they had a thirst for killing.”
Jenkinson, who was excluded from school four months before the murder for giving cannabis to another pupil, has traits of autism and ADHD and “high levels of anxiety. Ratcliffe has been diagnosed with autism along with a “high level of social anxiety”.
He also has “selective mutism” and has gradually stopped speaking to anyone apart from his mother after his arrest. After the teenage killers were convicted, Brianna’s mother Esther Ghey called for “empathy and compassion” for their families as “they too have lost a child” and “must live the rest of their lives knowing what their child has done”.
Police released this image of the knife that was used to killed Brianna (PA)And while she continues to have compassion for the parents of the killers, she believes the teenagers who committed the crime were beyond rehabilitation. “They're cowards, really, and it shows the character of them,” she told Good Morning Britain.
She added: “Maybe if they had admitted it or shown some remorse I would feel some sympathy for them. But the fact that they both pointed the finger and neither of them admitted anything and there was no emotion there... I don't feel guilty that they've been sent to prison.”
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