Brianna Ghey's mum reveals she is ‘still in touch’ with the parents of daughter’s killers

The mother of murdered teenager Brianna Ghey has kept in touch with the parents of her daughters killers, explaining: "We've both been through something really horrific."

Brianna, 16, a transgender girl from Warrington, died after being stabbed 28 times in at Culcheth Linear Park last February by teenagers Scarlett Jenkinson and Eddie Ratcliffe. The pair were sentenced to life in prison following a four-week trial last December. They must serve minimum terms of 22 years and 20 years respectively.

Appearing on Loose Women on Thursday (May 2), Esther Ghey shared an update on her campaigning efforts and explained why she'd kept in contact with Scarlett's mother. Speaking to Charlene White, Denise Welch, Judi Love and Kelle Bryan in the ITV studio, she said: "Scarlett's mother isn't the one that committed the crime and I understand how difficult it is.

READ MORE: AO Arena in talks to take Co-op Live rescheduled gigs - including two major acts

"I understand how many external influences there are in bringing a child up. No matter how hard we try now, to bring a child up in the best possible way, what they're accessing online is also going to be influencing them. I also saw the way that the parents were in court and how harrowed they were as well."

She said they had both lost a child, adding: "I suppose for them, they've got to continue with this now and like, their child is in prison and they've got to continue with, I imagine, the shame and guilt that their child's committed such a crime.” Esther added: “I’m glad that I did it and we're still in contact now. I think for me, I just wanted her to know that I didn't blame her.”

Manchester Crown Court heard during the teen's trial in December how Brianna was lured to her death after being invited out by Scarlett, who she regarded as a friend. But Scarlett and her friend Eddie had been secretly plotting to kill her.

The court heard that messages recovered from the killers' phones showed a 'preoccupation with violence, torture and death' and 'recorded them discussing how they wanted to kill people that they knew.' In one instance, Scarlette had sent Eddie a video which 'referred to killing and torture', writing: "I love watching torture vids, real ones on the dark web."

Esther is now campaigning for for tech and social media companies ‘to take responsibility online for the content that teenagers are accessing’. She told the Loose Women panel: "I've set up a petition, which has now got, I think, almost 120,000 signatures. It's calling for mobile phone companies to take more responsibility for children's welfare.

“So, I would really like to see phones that are developed, that are safe for children, that have things such as…harmful word monitoring, so that if a child is searching for something harmful to them, or even like texting something harmful, that will flag up to the parents phone, and screen time limiters. There's so many things that I would like to see. But, I want these to be a point of purchase so that the child cannot get around it as well. It needs to be tamper proof too.”

On parent intervention, she commented: “I think it's so difficult to be a parent, it's always been hard being a parent but now with this technology, you just can't monitor everything that a child or a teenager is accessing 24/7. They're carrying these devices around in their pockets all day.

"So, I think that I would urge parents to take as long as possible before giving the child a phone. There's lots of things emerging in the news now that are saying that smartphones can be detrimental to children's health.”

Esther continued: “I've not had an opportunity to speak to social media companies yet. I'm working closely with a group called Bereaved Families for Online Safety and we're having talks with Ofcom. So, we've got that side for the Online Safety Act but I have potentially got a meeting with a tech company at the end of May - that is kind of like a feasibility meeting as opposed to, ‘Can we do this’.”

Esther is also campaigning for ‘mindfulness to be available in schools more to concentrate on children's mental health in their formative years’ and told the panel: “So I've practised mindfulness now for about nine years and I've continued to practise mindfulness as well. So, every morning I try to meditate and I really do make sure that I take care of my mental health and that I take care of my physical health as well.”

Esther also explained why she wanted the names of Brianna’s killers to be released. A judge lifted reporting restrictions in February which had previously banned the media from identifying Scarlett and Eddie, who were up until then known as Girl X and Boy Y.

“At the time, we'd been through this whole trial and I decided that I wanted the names being released at the sentencing. Because ultimately, by the time they're 18, the names will be released anyway. So, I just wanted to get it all out all out of the way in one go. I didn't want them to have another layer of attention, I suppose and I wanted a sense of closure for our family as well.”

She continued: “I just think it was, in a way, it was a sense of closure, whereas we don't want it to be all dragged up again. And I want to look to the future, I want to see what we can do positively, how we can actually make a change and make things better, rather than being dragged over and over again.”