LONDON (AP) — The two 16-year-old convicted murderers of a transgender teenager in northwest England nearly a year ago were handed minimum sentences on Friday of 20 and 22 years.
Justice Amanda Yip lifted the reporting restrictions on naming the killers of 16-year-old Brianna Ghey. They were identified at Manchester Crown Court as Scarlett Jenkinson and Eddie Ratcliffe.
The horrific murder shocked the nation. Ghey was stabbed with a hunting knife 28 times in her head, neck, chest and back in broad daylight after being lured to a park in the town of Warrington on Feb. 11, 2023.
Yip handed Ratcliffe and Jenkinson a mandatory life sentence, and ordered them to serve a minimum term of 20 and 22 years, respectively, before they could be eligible for parole. If they had been adults — over the age of 18 — they would have faced much longer minimum terms.
They will be transferred to adult prisons when they turn 18.
“You will only be released, if in the future, it is decided you no longer present a danger," the judge said. “You both took part in a brutal and planned murder, which was sadistic in nature, and a secondary motivation was hostility to Brianna, because of her transgender identity.”
Jenkinson faces a longer minimum term in prison as she was clearly the ringleader, according to Yip, and had “enjoyed” killing Ghey.
“Scarlett, your motivation was to act out your fantasies," she said.
Neither had been named during the trial, which concluded in December. Under English law, young offenders are usually granted the protection of restrictions that prevent them from being named until they turn 18. Jenkinson and Ratcliffe were previously known as “Girl X” and “Boy Y,” having been 15 at the time of the killing.
However, Yip said that after they were found guilty last month, there was a “strong public interest in the full and unrestricted reporting of what is plainly an exceptional case.” Lawyers for the two argued that naming them would have ramifications for their welfare.
The judge sentended the pair after hearing victim impact statements from Ghey's family and experts.
In a statement to the court, Ghey’s father, Peter Spooner, said being the father of a transgender child — Brianna was previously known as Brett — had been “a difficult thing to deal with,” but that he had been “proud to gain another beautiful daughter.”
“We were forming a new relationship and these two murderers have stolen that from us both," he said. "Justice may have been done with the guilty verdicts, but no amount of time spent in prison will be enough for these monsters.”
Ratcliffe and Jenkinson had denied killing Ghey and blamed each other for the fatal stabbing. It's not known which one or if both wielded the knife. Neither had been in trouble with police before. The two were found guilty by a jury last month following a four-week trial.
The trial heard that the pair were intelligent and had a fascination with violence, torture and serial killers. They had planned the attack for weeks, detailed in a handwritten plan and phone messages found by detectives. They also had discussed killing others, which had prompted police to rule out transphobia as a motive behind Brianna’s murder early on in the investigation.
Prosecutor Deanna Heer read a statement to the court from Ghey's mother, Esther Ghey, in which she said the hardest thing to come to terms with was finding out that one of those charged with her child's murder, Jenkinson, was someone she thought was her daughter’s friend.
She said she was pleased when Brianna Ghey sent a text message on the day of her death saying she was going to meet a friend.
“I thought that she would have a wonderful time, hanging around with her friend and getting some fresh air. When all that time she was being lured to her death," she said.
“All I can think about is that she would have been scared and I wasn’t there for her. She needed me to protect her, Brianna wasn’t a fighter and she must have been so terrified," she said.
