The mother of murdered teenager Brianna Ghey has said she wants children under-16s to be banned from social media and have smartphones with no access to networking apps.
Esther Ghey is calling for teenagers to be given phones that are "suitable" for them and linked to their parents' phones to flag any suspicious activity and search. The call comes as it was revealed that killer Scarlett Jenkinson became fixated with Brianna, who was transgender, just like she was with the dark web.
Jenkinson and Eddie Ratcliffe were both 15 when they killed Brianna, 16, with a hunting knife after luring her to Linear Park, Culcheth, a village near Warrington, Cheshire, on February 11 last year. In court, it was revealed that Jenkinson had watched videos of torture and murder online.
Now Brianna's heartbroken mum has explained why she is calling for a change in the law and for searches for inappropriate material to be flagged to parents. Speaking on the BBC’s Sunday With Laura Kuenssberg, Ms Ghey said: “We’d like a law introduced so that there are mobile phones that are only suitable for under-16s.
“So if you’re over 16, you can have an adult phone, but then under the age of 16, you can have a children’s phone, which will not have all of the social media apps that are out there now. Also to have software that is automatically downloaded on the parents’ phone which links to the children’s phone, that can highlight key words.
“So if a child is searching the kind of words that Scarlett and Eddie were searching, it will then flag up on the parent’s phone.” She said if the searches her daughter’s killers had made had been flagged, their parents would have been “able to get some kind of help”.
Ms Ghey said her transgender daughter had accessed pro-anorexia and self-harm material online and been “very protective” over her phone, which had caused arguments. “If she couldn’t have accessed the sites, she wouldn’t have suffered as much,” she said. Describing the internet as the “Wild West”, she said the focus of technology had been on making money rather than “how we protect people or how we can necessarily benefit society”.
Manchester Crown Court heard Jenkinson had "enjoyed" the killing and she found the thought of violence "sexually arousing", with a desire to kill again. Her accomplice, Ratcliffe, had also expressed transphobia about his victim, Mrs Justice Yip ruled. Jenkinson must serve a minimum of 22 years before parole and Ratcliffe 20 years.
They were identified for the first time as they were sentenced on Friday after the judge lifted a ban on the press naming them. In a statement to the Warrington Guardian, Jenkinson's family said: "All of our thoughts are for Brianna and her family.
"The last 12 months have been beyond our worst nightmares as we have come to realise the brutal truth of Scarlett's actions. We agree with the jury's verdict, the judge's sentence and the decision to name the culprits."
Saying their lives were "in turmoil", the family thanked Brianna's mother Esther Ghey for her "incredible selflessness and empathy towards our family". "Her compassion is overwhelming and we are forever grateful," they said. "To all of Brianna's family and friends, our community and everyone else that has been affected by this horror, we are truly sorry."