Brianna Ghey's killers Scarlett Jenkinson and Eddie Ratcliffe sentenced to minimum of 22 and 20 years in prison

Nicola Wyn Williams, senior crown prosecutor at the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), says in a statement outside the court that the murder was "one of the most disturbing cases the CPS has had to deal with".

She continues: "The planning, violence and age of the killers is beyond belief.

"The two appear to have had a deadly influence on each other.

"Today's sentence reflects the brutality of the two killers' heartless crime."

Jenkinson made no reaction as she was told she must serve more than two decades behind bars.

She sat blinking occasionally as she was addressed by the judge and briefly asked a question of her intermediary, or approved adult, sat beside her in the dock.

Her mother, sat to her right in the public gallery, dabbed tears from her eyes with tissue.

Ratcliffe, also seated and looking directly in front of him, made no visible reaction as he was sentenced.

He was led down to the cells without looking over at his mother, who was sat to the left of the dock.

Mrs Justice Yip sentences Scarlett Jenkinson to a minimum of 22 years and Eddie Ratcliffe to a minimum of 20 years.

Mrs Justice Yip tells Ratcliffe: "You knew very well what you were doing was terribly wrong."

His autism can be no excuse for the offence, the judge says.

She notes how he has passed his GCSEs while in custody.

"There is a hope you may one day be rehabilitated."

Mrs Justice Yip: "You have lied so many times, Scarlett, that it is impossible to know what is true and what is not."

The judge notes she has expressed the desire to kill again.

She has shown no remorse, the court hears.

Her diagnosis of conduct-dissocial disorder "offers limited mitigation".

If she is ever to be released, the judge says, "a huge amount of work needs to be done first".

Mrs Justice Yip: "You both took part in a brutal and planned murder which was sadistic in nature and where a secondary motive was hostility towards Brianna because of her transgender identity.

"The part each of you played leads to a starting point of 20 years."

The murder had "significant" planning and pre-meditation, the judge says.

Mrs Justice Yip: "Brianna's injuries show she was killed with exceptional brutality."

She says it would be wrong to suggest Ratcliffe was under Jenkinson's control.

The judge says his rhetoric was transphobic. She notes he referred to Brianna as "it".

"You undoubtedly displayed hostility towards her based on her transgender identity."

Mrs Justice Yip says she is certain some of the wounds were inflicted by Eddie Ratcliffe.

"I sentence you on the basis both of you played a full part in killing Brianna.

"This case is unusual and it has shocked the public."

She says the minimum terms "will be much shorter" than an adult would receive.

The judge is in court and the sentencing has begun.

Mrs Justice Yip tells Jenkinson: "She believed you were her friend.

"She could not possibly have known you were a danger to her.

"I don't want to dwell on the murder itself but it was brutal."

Throughout the trial, the media had been ordered not to name Scarlet Jenkinson and Eddie Ratcliffe, but the order banning their identification was lifted.

Read more from Yahoo News UK here.

Mrs Justice Yip had earlier said sentencing would start at 2.15pm, but is still to re-enter the court.

Scarlett Jenkinson and Eddie Ratcliffe are set to be sentenced this afternoon.

This morning, Brianna's parents said they should never be released.

Her mother Esther Ghey told Manchester Crown Court: “I don’t believe that someone who is so disturbed and obsessed with murder and torture would ever be able to be rehabilitated."

And her father Peter Spooner said: "Justice may have been done with the guilty verdicts, but no amount of time spent in prison will be enough for these monsters."

Scarlett Jenkinson had already been asked to leave one school over drugs when Brianna Ghey had the misfortune to cross her path.

She had befriended the trans girl after joining Birchwood High School, finding her “different” and “fascinating”.

It was soon to become a deadly obsession ending in Brianna’s brutal murder.

Read more from PA Media here.

Richard Littler, defending Eddie Ratcliffe, said Scarlett Jenkinson had revealed more details of the planning to a psychiatrist after her conviction.

He told the court she had said: “I was meant to get rid of the body. I was going to drag her into the pipe. Before I even got a chance to drag the body someone was coming up the path.

“I was going to put her in the pipe. I saw it before, it’s big enough to fit a person in.”

He said the case was not simply a joint enterprise murder and added: “We submit Eddie’s sentence should be significantly less than that of his co-defendant.”

The court adjourned to 2.15pm, when Mrs Justice Yip is due to pass sentence.

Richard Littler, defending Ratcliffe, denied his “disparaging” language about Brianna meant the murder was motivated by transphobia.

He said: “The fact that Brianna was trans is immaterial. This is nothing to do with gender at all. Finding a few offensive comments made by an autistic adolescent does not satisfy the court to a criminal standard, of effectively a hate-crime, motivation. They were juvenile and immature.”

Littler, referring to the psychiatric report on Jenkinson, said the “box is well and truly ticked” for her on whether the crime had an element of sadism.

Littler cited what Jenkinson had told the psychiatrist about the stabbing.

He said: “It made her feel excited and that excitement made her stab more times. She liked having complete power over someone and enjoyed the power she had over someone weaker like Brianna.

“She was thrilled by thoughts of violence, she was sometimes sexually aroused by it. She had increasing interest in violence, torture, murder, weapons, serial killers, fuelled and re-enforce by documentaries and dark web materials on these subjects.”

Footage shows the moment Brianna Ghey met up with her teenage killers moments before she was stabbed to death.

A video clip released by police shows the three of them together close to Linear Park in Culcheth, a village near Warrington, Cheshire, on the afternoon of 11 February last year, moments before Brianna was knifed to death 28 times.

Brianna, who was wearing a white hoodie, walked alongside Jenkinson as Ratcliffe lingered to the right of them.

Later dashcam footage showed the murderous teenagers leaving the park together, having killed Brianna.

As jurors heard the grim details of Brianna Ghey’s “frenzied” stabbing, the accused sat in the dock doing puzzles in a Sudoku magazine on his knee.

Head down, pen in hand, Eddie Ratcliffe displayed not a flicker as the 999 call played, ruled too distressing to be made public, jurors hearing the breathless words of the horrified dog walker who first came across Brianna’s lifeless body.

Read more from PA Media here.

Richard Pratt, defending Scarlett Jenkinson, said he acknowledged there appeared to be a substantial element of pre-meditation in the murder of Brianna Ghey.

He added: “At the same time, there were some extraordinary and almost, if I can use the phrase, childlike mistakes from this would-be serial killer.”

He said she left notes in her bedroom and made limited attempts to conceal evidence.

Pratt said Jenkinson had been diagnosed with an eating disorder and a dissocial disorder.

Scarlett Jenkinson now claims Eddie Ratcliffe was responsible for stabbing Brianna, despite telling a psychiatrist and a social worker she had stabbed her, her barrister has told the court.

The judge, however, said it is "impossible to believe anything she says".

Richard Pratt, defending Jenkinson, said: “It’s unusual but not unique for me to address the court after conviction on behalf of a defendant who has subsequently admitted her guilt.”

He said she had given two different accounts to a psychiatrist and a social worker of what happened. He added: “Our instructions would now be it was Eddie who was responsible for the stabbing.”

Pratt said when he asked the teenager why she had told people she had stabbed Brianna, Jenkinson said because she “felt responsible and she accepted she wanted herself to do the stabbing”.

He added: “She continues to accept, horrifying and gruesome as they are, some of those other features of the case as to her motive and what she intended to do, but for the intervention of dog walkers.”

Mrs Justice Yip said: “There is so much evidence of untruths in the case of Scarlett that it is impossible to believe anything she says.”

She said she had the impression that, having been convicted, Jenkinson wanted to paint herself in as bad a light as possible, which would seem “completely extraordinary” but for the evidence of her “admiration of notorious killers”.

A girl stares into a camera, her wavy chestnut hair blowing across her face as she walks across a meadow filled with buttercups. She looks the very picture of innocence. “Gorgeous Scarlett,” a comment under the picture reads. “So beautiful,” says another.

Exactly one year ago, that young girl, along with her friend, a boy of 15, planned to murder Brianna Ghey. Today, for the first time, they can be named.

Read more from The Telegraph here.

Downing Street said Rishi Sunak’s thoughts are with the family of Brianna Ghey.

The prime minister’s official spokesman said: “First and foremost, the prime minister’s thoughts are with Brianna’s family, friends and loved ones.

“Obviously the hurt that they feel is unimaginable and the prime minister shares in the country’s horror at this despicable and cowardly murder.”

The spokesman praised the “courage and dignity” of the teenager’s mother.

Asked about the decision to name her killers, he said: “It’s obviously an independent judicial decision.

“As the judge has said herself, this is clearly a shocking and exceptional case.”

These notes were previously discussed during the trial.

Cheshire Police released images of them on Friday.

Officers' bodycam footage, released by Cheshire Police on Friday, show the moments Jenkinson and Ratcliffe were taken into custody.

Scarlett Jenkinson drew up a second “kill list” of staff at the secure youth accommodation where she is being held, Manchester Crown Court heard.

Deanna Heer, prosecuting, said: “Another kill list was found at the secure unit which refers to names of people caring for her.”

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”.

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.

This image has been released by Cheshire Police.

Back in Manchester Crown Court on Friday, Deanna Heer, prosecuting, has outlined factors the judge, Mrs Justice Yip, must take into account in deciding the minimum term the defendants should serve in custody.

Heer said the law says that if the judge decides the murder is committed in whole or part by motivation because of hostility to Brianna because of her trans status, or if the murder involved sadistic conduct, then the minimum term would be higher.

Heer said that even given Jenkinson’s age and immaturity and the "kill list" (see post below) of other potential victims, none of whom were trans, there is evidence of the murder being motivated by hostility because Brianna was trans.

In Ratcliffe’s case she said he used “disparaging terms” about Brianna, showing his “transphobic attitude”.

Mrs Justice Yip said “there’s evidence of transphobic comment and there’s evidence of sadism” but questioned whether it met the threshold, in law, to be an aggravating factor.

Heer, speaking of Jenkinson’s admissions to her psychiatrist, added: “She did enjoy the feeling of stabbing, feeling of power.”

The killers had drawn a "kill list" of four other children - none of whom are transgender.

Det Supt Mike Evans, head of crime at Cheshire Police, said in December he believed they had a “thirst for killing” and it was Brianna’s vulnerability and accessibility that made her a target.

He said: “I think if it hadn’t been Brianna it would have been one of the four other children on that list.

“It’s just that Brianna was the one who was accessible at that time, and then became the focus of those desires, so to speak."

Jenkinson, while aged 14, downloaded a TOR internet browser app to watch videos of the torture and murder of real people in “red rooms” on the “dark web”.

She developed an interest in serial killers, making notes on their methods, and admitted enjoying “dark fantasies” about killing and torture.

The pair lived in a secret world of warped interests in murder and cruelty, their trial heard.

Jenkinson told Ratcliffe she wanted to stab Brianna “jus coz its fun lol… I want to see the pure horror on her face and hear her scream”.

In her statement to the court, Brianna’s mother Esther Ghey said she believed Jenkinson and Ratcliffe continued to be a danger to society.

She said: “I don’t believe that someone who is so disturbed and obsessed with murder and torture would 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.”

Deanna Heer, prosecuting, said Brianna’s mother Esther Ghey had planned to read a statement to the court but that she would be reading it on her behalf.

She said: “Esther, I think it’s fair to say, can’t bring herself to do it.”

In the statement, 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.

She had been “pleased” when Brianna sent a text message on 11 February to say she was going to meet a friend.

“I thought that she would have a wonderful time, hanging around with her friend and getting some fresh air. When all that time she was being lured to her death.

“All I can think about is that she would have been scared and I wasn’t there for her. She needed me to protect her, Brianna wasn’t a fighter and she must have been so terrified.”

Brianna’s father Peter Spooner has just read a statement to the court.

He 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”.

He said: “We were forming a new relationship and these two murderers have stolen that from us both.

“I hate how Brianna’s life has been brutally taken away from her and she has been deprived of the life she wanted to live. She never had the chance to sit her exams or go on to further education.

“Now my world has been torn apart, justice may have been done with the guilty verdicts, but no amount of time spent in prison will be enough for these monsters.

“I cannot call them children as that makes them sound naive or vulnerable which they are not, they are pure evil, Brianna was the vulnerable one.”

Deanna Heer, prosecuting, said Jenkinson claimed Eddie Ratcliffe did not like Brianna because she is trans but her motivation was “quite different.”

Heer continued: “Her motivation for doing so was anticipating Brianna was going to leave her and wanted to kill her so she would always be with her.”

Jenkinson said she also intended to take a part of Brianna’s body, “as a token, part of her flesh”.

She also admitted an earlier incident when Brianna became ill came about in an attempt by her to poison her victim with pills.

Heer said, in a further account of events to a probation officer, Jenkinson had said she and Ratcliffe deliberately lured Brianna to the park.

Heer continued: “On this occasion she said it was she who first inflicted stab wounds then passed it to Eddie who forced the victim to the floor, stabbing her about three times, at that point she took the knife and delivered the majority of stab wounds.”

Scarlett Jenkinson has admitted for the first time stabbing Brianna Ghey herself.

Deanna Heer, 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”.

Heer said: “She said effectively, she said that at the time of the killing she had in fact administered stab wounds herself.

“She had snatched the knife from Eddie’s hand and stabbed Brianna repeatedly.

“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.”

Peter Spooner told Sky News of the killers: "I have no feelings, there's only anger towards them. If I'm honest I hate them. They're just evil for what they've done and I don't think they'll ever change.

"They'll always be monsters. And that's what they are to me. That's my feelings for them, they're just a pair of monsters."

The father of the murdered teenager Brianna Ghey has described her killers as "a pair of monsters" who "should be forgotten".

Peter Spooner spoke to Sky News as the 16-year-olds were sentenced for the brutal murder of Brianna in a park in Cheshire last February.

He paid tribute to his "beautiful and talented" daughter as he reflected on the memories her murder had deprived them of making together.

Read more from Sky News here.

Jenkinson, Brianna’s school friend and the daughter of teachers, who lives close to the park in Culcheth, was identified only as girl X during their trial in December last year at Manchester Crown Court.

Ratcliffe, from Leigh, whose mother is a skiing instructor and father runs his own businesses, had been identified only as boy Y.

Each had denied murder and blamed the other for the killing, described as “horrific” by detectives.

Ratcliffe, diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder and who is non-verbal, and Jenkinson, diagnosed with traits of autism and ADHD, both face a mandatory life sentence when Mrs Justice Yip sentences them later this morning.

Intelligent, “high functioning” and coming from normal backgrounds, the trial heard the pair had a fascination for violence, torture and murder and a “thirst for killing”.

Neither had been in trouble with police before.

Scarlett Jenkinson and Eddie Ratcliffe, both 16, can now be named as the killers of teenager Brianna Ghey after Mrs Justice Yip lifted a ban on reporting their identities before they are sentenced for murder at Manchester Crown Court.

Girl X and boy Y are sitting in court, the BBC is reporting, though the hearing has not started yet.

They are both with support workers, the BBC said, with boy Y holding a puzzle book containing crosswords.

• November 2022

The two teenagers discussed killing a child referred to in court as boy M.

• 5 December

Girl X sends boy Y a video which was apparently an advert for an underground site for people who like rape, snuff, torture and murder.

• 15 December

Girl X messages boy Y, telling him she is “obsessed over someone” called Brianna but did not have feelings for them.

• 1 January, 2023

Boy Y sends girl X a photograph of a hunting knife and tells her: “Spent my money. I bought a knife.”

• 23 January

Girl X messages boy Y, telling him she gave Brianna so many ibuprofen gel tablets it “should have been enough to kill her”.

• 26 January

The two teenagers compile a list of at least four people, as well as Brianna, they wanted to kill.

• 3 February

Girl X sends boy Y a picture of a handwritten note of their plan of how to kill Brianna, titled “Saturday 11th February 2023. Victim: Brianna Ghey”.

• 11 February

1.41pm: Brianna sends her mother a message saying: “I’m on the bus by myself, I’m scared.”

1.53pm: Brianna meets girl X and boy Y at a bus stop in Culcheth.

2.30pm: Brianna messages a friend, describing girl X as “weird”.

3.06pm: Brianna sends a message to girl X saying: “Girl where are you.”

3.13pm: Brianna is found lifeless by dog walkers Kathryn and Andrew Vize.

4.02pm: Brianna is declared dead at the scene.

• 12 February

Girl X and boy Y are arrested at their homes.

• 15 February

Police find Brianna’s phone in a drain, stained with her blood in an area girl X and boy Y were seen walking shortly after the murder.

Under-18s who are convicted of crimes are not usually named.

However, 71% of Britons - according to YouGov polling carried out last month - think that in very serious cases they should be.

Brianna Ghey's mother Esther Ghey, centre, arrives at Manchester Crown Court as a boy and a girl, both 16, are due to be sentenced and named for the murder of teenager Brianna in a park in Culcheth, near Warrington.

Brianna, 16, was stabbed with a hunting knife 28 times in her head, neck, chest and back after being lured to Linear Park on 11 February last year.