According to the rules of investigation, the murder of Brianna Ghey was not foreseeable | Cheshire

Brianna Ghey's murder could not have been predicted by her school or those of her killers, a coroner said as she recorded the wrongful death verdict.

Brianna, 16, was stabbed to death in a “sadistic” and “extraordinarily brutal” murder in a park in Warrington on February 11, 2023 by Eddie Ratcliffe and Scarlett Jenkinson, who were both 15 at the time.

Jenkinson was sentenced to 22 years in prison and Ratcliffe was sentenced to 20 years in February this year for stabbing Brianna 28 times in the head, neck, chest and back with a hunting knife.

At the inquest into the teenager's death, which began on Wednesday and lasted three days, Cheshire senior coroner Jacqueline Devonish said local authorities who oversaw the services that met Brianna and her killers could not have predicted her murder.

Brianna was a student at Birchwood High School in Warrington, where she befriended Jenkinson, who had transferred from Culcheth High School after she “whipped” a younger student with cannabis sweets.

Within weeks of her “managed transfer” from Culcheth, where Ratcliffe was a student, Jenkinson became obsessed with Brianna and began plotting murder with Ratcliffe.

Since she was 14, Jenkinson enjoyed watching videos of real killings and torture on the dark web, dreamed of murder and developed an interest in serial killers, as was learned in her murder trial.

But her “dark fantasies” were not known to the school or other adults, her lawsuit said.

The inquest at Warrington Coroner's Court examined the protection of all three teenagers and how Brianna came into contact with Jenkinson.

However, the hearing was told that despite Jenkinson's misbehavior at school, no one could have predicted that she was planning to murder Brianna and that this would happen.

At the conclusion of the investigation, Devonish said: “There was no reason for anyone to believe that the friendship was anything other than genuine.”

“I found Birchwood High School to provide Brianna with a high standard of support in a caring environment.”

Devonish said there were no visible signs that Brianna was at risk from Jenkinson.

She added: “She had been planning Brianna’s murder since late 2022. Eddie Ratcliffe was the only person who knew about it other than Scarlett Jenkinson.

“I found that the schools could not reasonably have foreseen that Scarlett Jenkinson and Eddie Ratcliffe would have planned and murdered Brianna.

“Based on the evidence available at the time, one could not reasonably have predicted that Scarlett Jenkinson was mentally unstable enough to kill.”

Both Brianna and Jenkinson had personal problems that interfered with their schooling.

Jenkinson had assaulted another student and showed up to class drunk and smelling of cannabis.

Brianna was diagnosed with autism and ADHD. Esther Ghey, her mother, said her daughter “sunk into darkness,” falling behind in schoolwork and spending a lot of time online, gaining thousands of followers on TikTok and YouTube by posting video content.

But Ghey said her daughter's online world was “very toxic” and put her at risk of sexual exploitation.

Before her murder, concerns were raised about Brianna's online interactions, but she refused to give her mother access to her phone and her school was unable to take the device away from her, the hearing heard.

Esther Ghey is now campaigning to raise awareness of the dangers of social media for children and to introduce stronger parental controls.