The father of the teenage boy who murdered Brianna Ghey has been jailed for sexual offences against two girls.
Kyle Ratcliffe, whose son Eddie is serving life along with Scarlett Jenkinson for the murder of the transgender teenager, was described at Manchester crown court as a risk to girls.
Ratcliffe, who appeared from HMP Forest Bank, Salford, admitted two offences of exposure in November 2023 involving two girls aged 16 at a bus stop. The offences were committed shortly before his son went on trial.
Ratcliffe, 36, also pleaded guilty to taking an indecent image of a pre-pubescent girl by covertly recording her in a changing room in August last year.
The court was told that he had previous similar convictions.
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Jailing him for 15 months and ordering that his name be placed on the sex offender register for ten years, Judge John Potter said the conviction of Ratcliffe’s son did not “in any way” mitigate his offending.
The judge said: “The offences coupled with your previous convictions make it clear that you have a sexual attraction towards female children and teenagers whom you objectivise for gratification.
“This, Mr Ratcliffe, has potential to cause very serious harm and portrays you, in my judgment, as currently presenting a significant risk to such individuals.”
A reporting restriction preventing publication of Ratcliffe’s prosecution was lifted by the judge.
Earlier, the court was told that Ratcliffe had committed the two “identical” offences of exposure on successive days, the mornings of November 22 and 23 last year.
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Ratcliffe, a father of three who had run a kick-boxing gym in Leigh, Greater Manchester, had been driving his Maserati along a busy road at about 7.45am.
As he passed two girls at a bus stop waiting to go to college, he turned his head towards them and as they looked back at him they could see his hand moving up and down and his trousers pulled down to his knees.
Michelle Brown, for the prosecution, said that one girl had been “shocked and in disbelief” at what she had seen.
The next day, Ratcliffe again passed them on the road at the same bus stop and was again seen masturbating in his car.
On this occasion, one of the girls, who cannot be identified, took a photograph of his car with her mobile phone.
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Both girls expressed “shock, confusion and concern” and told their parents, and police were able to trace Ratcliffe from the photo.
Detectives then analysed his phone and found a video taken three months before on the afternoon of August 22, 2023 at a waterpark in Cheshire.
The court was told that Ratcliffe had secretly recorded a “pre-pubescent” girl, aged 12 to 15, getting changed out of a swimming costume.
Internet use on his phone also showed he had searched for pornography online using terms including “students”, “innocent teens” and “public dick flash”.
Ratcliffe initially told a “pack of lies” to police, claiming the video had been sent to him and blaming a medical problem for the offences of exposing himself.
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But he later admitted the offences, and the court was told that Ratcliffe had previous convictions for similar behaviour.
In 2008 he was given a suspended prison sentence for exposure for masturbating in his car near a girl aged 16.
In 2012 he was given a three-year community order for exposure after being seen masturbating behind the wheel of his vehicle while waiting at a red light.
Mark Friend, representing Ratcliffe, said: “One knows not the motivation to behave in the way he did. The reality is, it is perhaps either difficult or unrealistic to divide this defendant from that which has befallen his family.
“So far as their life as it is now, it is but a shadow that they enjoyed prior to February 2023. The defendant accepts that he has played his own part in this misery and left his wife and other two children dealing with that burden alone.”
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Eddie Ratcliffe and Jenkinson, both 16, were jailed for life on February 2, with minimum terms of 20 and 22 years set respectively, for the “sadistic” murder of Brianna.
Passing sentence on them, Mrs Justice Yip said the “exceptionally brutal” murder had elements of both sadism by Jenkinson and transphobic hate on the part of Ratcliffe.
Both were aged 15 when they carried out the “disturbing” plan to murder Brianna, 16, in a “frenzied and ferocious” attack with a hunting knife.
Brianna was stabbed 28 times in her head, neck, chest and back after being lured to Linear Park, Culcheth, a village near Warrington, Cheshire, on the afternoon of February 11 last year
