By Pat Hurst, PA
MURDERED Warrington teenager Brianna Ghey was at risk of sexual exploitation as concerns were raised over her use of her mobile phone and social media, an inquest heard.
The murdered transgender teenager, 16, had thousands of followers on TikTok and YouTube, where she posted video content about make-up, hairdressing and dancing, Warrington Coroner’s Court heard.
Before her murder concerns had been raised about her interactions online but she had refused to let her mother have access to her phone and her school could not take the device off her either, the hearing was told.
Brianna, 16, was lured to Culcheth Linear Park by classmate Scarlett Jenkinson and her friend Eddie Ratcliffe, both 15 at the time, where she was stabbed 28 times with a hunting knife on February 11 last year.
From age 14, Jenkinson had enjoyed watching videos of real killing and torture on the dark web, fantasised about murder and developed an interest in serial killers.
Brianna Ghey’s killers
Brianna’s inquest heard she had been diagnosed with ADHD and autism, had self-harmed and struggled with anxiety and an eating disorder.
Her school, Birchwood High, became aware she was involved in online groups promoting eating disorders and self-harm, but she refused to engage with internet safety advice.
Her mother, Esther Ghey, expressed concern about her welfare and safety, in particular her social media engagement and the length of time she was spending online.
But despite being offered help, Brianna again struggled to engage with any support services, the inquest heard.
She had thousands of followers on TikTok and YouTube but would not allow her mother to access her phone and would rarely put it down as it was always on her person.
In December of 2022 a panel meeting of school and other professionals deemed her to be at “medium risk” of child sexual exploitation.
Fiona Cowan, head of children’s safeguarding at Warrington Council, said the local authority or school could not force children to engage with help services and Brianna’s social worker was trying to work with her and having “conversations” around her use of TikTok and social media.
Jacqueline Devonish, senior coroner for Cheshire, asked about concerns around Brianna’s phone use and if the school could have taken her phone from her.
Ms Cowan said: “It would be down to the parents, as a local authority we don’t have responsibility to allow us to remove a phone.”
Ms Cowan said she had known police to remove a child’s phone if they believed a child to be at risk.
The inquest heard shortly before her murder Brianna Ghey had refused to come into school and a meeting was held with school heads and her grandmother, Marion Ghey, on February 7 last year.
It was to discuss her “unacceptable conduct” including her use of a mobile phone in school and “challenging behaviour” including disrespect towards staff and the length of her skirt, which she kept rolling up to make shorter.
Brianna “did not react well” in the meeting, was rude, said school rules were “ridiculous”, would not comply and would not be coming back to school.
Her grandmother thanked school staff and apologised for Brianna’s behaviour.
Ms Cowan said a safeguarding review of the case concluded, despite Jenkinson’s involvement with taking cannabis into both her schools, no one could reasonably have foreseen she would go on to commit murder.
The authorities did not know about Jenkinson’s fascination with violence or that she was using the dark web to feed her violent fantasies and there was no evidence of any “gaps” in the school and council’s work which led to the murder.
Esther Ghey is now campaigning to raise awareness of the dangers of social media to children and for greater parental controls to be put in place.
Earlier the inquest heard that The schoolgirl who murdered Brianna Ghey was facing being kicked out of a second school when she carried out the “sadistic” killing.
Scarlett Jenkinson, 15, after poor behaviour at Culcheth High School was on a “managed transfer” to Birchwood High, but this was about to fail when she was arrested for murder, Warrington Coroner’s Court heard.
The inquest heard Culcheth never made it explicitly clear to Birchwood that Jenkinson had been involved in “spiking” a younger pupil with drugs at school.
And in a statement jointly approved by both school’s lawyers, they said there is “no consistent recollection” about the information passed on about Jenkinson from one school to the other. But the schools say, even if all available details had been passed on, it was still likely Birchwood would have taken Jenkinson on as a pupil.
In any event Jenkinson was involved in a second cannabis related incident at her new school and the transfer about to fail, leaving her permanently excluded.
Days later Jenkinson carried out the murder with Ratcliffe.
Emma Mills, head teacher at Birchwood High School said there was nothing to suggest Brianna being in the same school as Jenkinson put her in danger or Jenkinson was a risk to other students.
The Tuesday before Brianna was murdered on the Saturday, Ms Mills said Jenkinson had been missing from school and was found in the toilets at an Asda store across the road.
“She was really upset and was hearing voices saying unkind things,” Ms Mills told the hearing.
By then Birchwood was about to end Jenkinson’s managed transfer, after an incident involving cannabis edibles in school, the same issue that had caused her to transfer from Culcheth.
From age 14, Jenkinson had enjoyed watching videos of real killing and torture on the dark web, fantasised about murder and developed an interest in serial killers.
Ms Mills was asked if the schools knew any of this information.
“No, nothing at all,” she said, adding that she had concluded, nothing had been “missed” by any of the schools or agencies.
Suzy Saffrey, designated safeguarding lead at Culcheth High School, told the hearing about Jenkinson’s record at her first school.
Ms Saffrey said Jenkinson had poor punctuality and from year nine onwards, school records show a series of incidents she was responsible for or involved in.
In October 2020 she had come into school smelling very strongly of cannabis, but she, and her family, declined any support and Jenkinson denied taking drugs so was not sanctioned.
The parents told the school the smell came from cannabis treatment for the family’s elderly dog.
The inquest heard her parents were difficult to contact, with emails and calls left unanswered.
After a one-day internal isolation for an incident whose circumstances were not recorded, in May 2021, she was given another day in the behaviour inclusion centre for assaulting another student.
In January 2022, with Jenkinson now in Year 10, she and a friend had drunk alcohol before coming into school, “under the influence”, the inquest heard, for which she was suspended for two days, but the girl and her family declined any support from the local drug and alcohol team.
In March 2022 she was given another one day in the isolation unit for making a racist comment to another pupil and in June received a lunchtime detention for undefined “poor behaviour”.
Two months later in May, Ms Saffrey said some boys reported there was an inappropriate photo of a girl pupil in the school going round online.
The victim said her Snapchat account had been logged into by Jenkinson, who had then shared the photo but Jenkinson denied any wrongdoing and was not sanctioned.
In September 2022, Jenkinson brought in some cannabis-laced sweets and while in the school library encouraged another girl, two years younger, to eat the sweet, making her unwell.
This incident led to her being transferred to Birchwood.
The inquest is scheduled to conclude later today, Friday.
