On 11 February 2023, Brianna Ghey ( JEYE), a 16-year-old English transgender girl, was murdered in a premeditated attack by Scarlett Jenkinson and Eddie Ratcliffe. After being lured into Culcheth Linear Park by Jenkinson, Ghey was fatally stabbed. Jenkinson and Ratcliffe, both aged 15 at the time, were arrested the day after the attack, and were eventually charged with murder. The pair were convicted on 20 December 2023 at Manchester Crown Court and were sentenced on 2 February 2024 to be detained at His Majesty's pleasure, with a minimum of 22 years for Jenkinson and 20 years for Ratcliffe, before being eligible for parole. The court concluded that the offence was primarily motivated by sadistic tendencies and that transphobia was a secondary motive for Ratcliffe.
Background
Brianna Ghey Brianna Ghey ( JY; 7 November 2006 – 11 February 2023) was a 16-year-old transgender girl and a Year 11 pupil at Birchwood Community High School in the Birchwood area of Warrington. As a teenager, Ghey was diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and autism, which her mother said impaired her ability to identify dangerous situations, as well as anxiety. These diagnoses also meant that Ghey did not participate in regular lessons and required one-on-one tutoring in her school's inclusion room, where Ghey eventually met Jenkinson. According to her friends, Ghey often helped younger transgender girls to safely and legally get transgender hormone therapy. She reportedly faced years of transphobic harassment and bullying, including at school, a part of which was being repeatedly "gang beaten". However, in a statement reportedly approved by Ghey's mother, Birchwood's headteacher denied that Ghey had faced bullying at school. Ghey was a TikToker, with her number of followers variously reported as 11,000, 31,000, and 63,000. On TikTok, she mimed and danced to popular songs. One of her final TikToks said that she was "excluded from school". After her death, her TikTok account was deleted.
Perpetrators
Scarlett Jenkinson had attended Culcheth High School alongside Ratcliffe. She faced permanent exclusion after an incident on 27 September 2022, in which she brought cannabidiol-infused edibles into school, giving them to a younger classmate, who then fell ill. The incident, which police recorded as a spiking, occurred four months before Jenkinson would first attempt to murder Ghey, by poisoning her with ibuprofen tablets. As an alternative to exclusion, Jenkinson was allowed to transfer to Birchwood, where she met and formed a friendship with Ghey. In text messages with Ratcliffe, Jenkinson revealed that she was obsessed with Ghey. In an interview with Richard Church, a child psychiatrist, Jenkinson stated that she felt as if she were about to lose Ghey as a friend, and that she wanted to "kill her so she would always be with her". Before the murder, Jenkinson displayed a fascination with serial killers, watching documentaries and keeping notes about notorious killers, including Jeffrey Dahmer and John Wayne Gacy. She reportedly used the Tor browser to access videos of torture and murder on the dark web. Eddie Ratcliffe, a pupil at Culcheth High School at the time of the murder, was described by a fellow student as a role model who achieved top grades. Ratcliffe first met Jenkinson in school at age 11. In 2018, he competed at a kickboxing championship organised by ISKA in Jamaica as an amateur kickboxer. Described in one of Jenkinson's notebooks as intelligent but socially awkward, Ratcliffe was known to be a loner. According to neighbours, he never showed any signs of violence prior to the murder. Ratcliffe had a fascination with knives and also collected blades; he bought the hunting knife used for the murder during a skiing trip to Bulgaria.
Murder On the morning of 11 February 2023, Ghey was messaged by Jenkinson, instructing her to take a bus to Culcheth Library later that afternoon. At 12:45 pm, Ghey was captured on a doorbell camera leaving her house in Birchwood. While leaving, Ghey messaged her mother about meeting up with Jenkinson. Following Jenkinson's directions, Ghey walked 25 minutes to the Birchwood railway station and boarded a bus at 1:38 pm, after which she texted her mother. At 1:53 pm, Ghey met with Jenkinson and her friend Eddie Ratcliffe, whom Ghey had not met before, at the bus stop outside the library. At 2:02 pm, they were last seen on CCTV heading towards Culcheth Linear Park, where multiple eyewitnesses saw them walking together. Exchanging messages on Snapchat, Ghey, whom Jenkinson had lured under the impression that they were going to take drugs, sent a message to Jenkinson at 2:15 pm, "Girl, Ima wait where I am until we have drugs lol. I'm too anxious." Jenkinson, posing as a fake dealer on Snapchat, exchanged messages with herself arranging meeting plans. At 2:30 pm, Ghey, having grown suspicious of Jenkinson, messaged a friend "Scarlett is so weird girl. I think she's pretending to have a deeler [sic]." Afterwards, Ghey was attacked with a hunting knife. Jenkinson and Ratcliffe were spotted from a distance by a woman walking her dog with her husband in the park. After realising they had been noticed, they fled the scene. The couple then discovered Ghey's body, face-down and bleeding heavily, and called emergency services at 3:13 pm. At 4:02 pm, Ghey was pronounced dead by paramedics at the scene.
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