Brianna Ghey’s mother calls for empathy as judge rules teenage killers can be named – live
Brianna, 16, was stabbed with a hunting knife 28 times in a park near Warrington in February
For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails
Sign up to our free breaking news emails
Sign up to our free breaking news emails
Brianna Ghey’s mother has called for empathy and compassion for the parents of her daughter’s killers as a judge has ruled the two teenage murderers can be named.
Esther Ghey called for “empathy and compassion” for the pair’s families as “they too have lost a child” and “must live the rest of their lives knowing what their child has done”.
Trial judge Mrs Justice Yip praised Ms Ghey for her “fortitude and humanity” at Manchester Crown Court on Thursday.
During the hearing, the judge also said the young killers can be identified by the media when they are sentenced on 2 February, lifting the anonymity orders previously protecting the defendants’ identities due to their age.
Brianna, 16, was stabbed with a hunting knife 28 times in her head, neck, chest and back in Linear Park, Culcheth, a village near Warrington, Cheshire, on the afternoon of 11 February.
Following a four-week trial, the two teenagers accused, currently only identified as girl X and boy Y, both now aged 16 but 15 at the time, were convicted of murder on Wednesday and are now facing mandatory jail terms for life.
Kills lists, Sweeney Todd and the dark web: how torture-obsessed teens plotted Brianna Ghey’s murder
Brianna Ghey’s parents deliver statements after two teenagers found guilty of 16-year-old’s murder
Was Brianna Ghey’s murder a transphobic hate crime?
Timeline of events leading up to Brianna Ghey’s murder
Watch: Parents of Brianna Ghey deliver statements
Brianna Ghey’s father hails ‘beautiful girl to be proud of'
Peter Spooner, Brianna’s father, said it “breaks” him daily to know he will never see his daughter again.
“It is impossible to put into words how the murder of my child has affected me,” he told reporters. “I never stopped loving her and I never will. When she was little I remember the faces she would pull to make me laugh.
“The cheeky giggle, the funny dances, are engraved in my memory. I knew she was going to be a star and the amount of support she received from the followers on TikTok proved this.
“I was so proud of what she could do.”
Referring to her “amazing talent”, he added: “I look into her eyes and they shine back at me, and I know she was a beautiful girl to be proud of.”
Prosecutor says ‘planning, violence and age of killers is beyond belief’
A prosecutor called Brianna Ghey’s murder “one of the most distressing cases I have ever dealt with”.
Deputy chief crown prosecutor Ursula Doyle, of CPS Mersey-Cheshire, said: “This has been one of the most distressing cases I have ever dealt with. The planning, the violence and the age of the killers is beyond belief.
“Brianna Ghey was subjected to a frenzied and ferocious attack and was stabbed 28 times in broad daylight, in a public park.
“Girl X and Boy Y appear to have been a deadly influence on each other and turned their dark fantasies about murder into a reality. The extensive messages between the two, planning and plotting to kill people, talking of murder, torture and cruelty, were difficult to read.
“The messages provided a terrifying insight into the minds of the two defendants – but also revealed the detailed planning of their attack and subsequent attempts to cover it up.”
Killers had discussed murdering other children prior to Brianna Ghey
Teenager X, who described herself as a Satanist, told the jury she began to fantasise about killing people from as young as age 14, around the time she began to take an interest in “dark materials”, such as films of murder, torture and serial killers found on the dark web via an app she had downloaded.
As early as October, X and Y had discussed the killing of another child, boy M, in messages shown to jurors, with X saying: “If we kill boy M, can I keep some things, a couple of teeth and an eye.”
After being blocked on a fake Instagram account by one of their targets, boy E, the girl and boy moved their attention to Brianna. Jurors were told X messaged Y, “I want to see pure horror on her face and hear her scream in pain,” to which the boy replied: “Really? All I wanted to see is what size d**k it had.”
After trying and failing to murder Brianna with the ibuprofen gel tablets in January, the pair then decided to stab the 16-year-old to death in Linear Park on 28 January, heard the court. Brianna did not show up to meet them then – but she did two weeks later.
Brianna Ghey told mother she was ‘scared’ in final text message
The jury heard that Brianna Ghey, who did not tend to go out on her own, was travelling on the bus to meet girl X when she messaged her mother for the last time, telling her, “I’m on the bus by myself, I’m scared.”
Brianna, X and Y arrived at the park together – but, at 3.06pm, Brianna messaged X: “Girl where are you?”
Seven minutes later, a distressed 999 call, later played to jurors, was made by dog walker Kathryn Vize, reporting that somebody had been attacked and she had seen the attackers run away.
How Brianna Ghey’s killers acted on day after her death
The day after murdering Brianna, the teenage girl messaged her saying: “Girl, is everything okay? Some teenage girl got killed in Linear Park it’s on news everywhere. And why did you ditch us for some random man from Manchester. Like wtf. That is so f***** up.”
Meanwhile, the boy was online using the Crown Prosecution Service website, looking up penalties for supplying or withholding information.
X then posted a tribute to Brianna on Snapchat, describing her as an “amazing friend” and that what had happened was “so f****** sickening”.
Teenager X made lists of types of serial killers, court told
A list of types of serial killers was written down in teenager X’s black Pukka notebook, including mass murderers, psychopathic sexual sadists and copycat killers, and notes about “Killer Clown” John Wayne Gacy, a US serial killer, junior prosecution counsel Cheryl Mottram told jurors during the trial.
Among the pages were other notes made on Jeffrey Dahmer, Richard Ramirez and Harold Shipman.
Brianna Ghey’s mother describes ‘hole in my heart'
Brianna Ghey’s mother has described a “hole in my heart” as she said she will “never get over” the murder of her daughter.
The days and weeks after her daughter’s death were a blur, Esther Ghey told the BBC, adding: “The only way I can describe it is, there’s a hole in my heart.
“I know for a fact I will never get over this.”
Brianna Ghey’s mother joked she would have to call police on day daughter was killed
Brianna Ghey’s mother has recalled that she joked with her partner that they would “have to ring the police” if her daughter didn’t come home soon on the afternoon that she was killed.
“I was out walking the dogs with my partner,” Esther Ghey told the BBC. “We noticed there was a very high police presence in our area and then police in our street as well.
“I sort of joked – ‘if Brianna doesn’t come home soon I’ll have to ring the police’. And when we got to the front door, the door was open and there were two policemen stood in the house.”
Brianna Ghey was ‘fearless’, says mother
Brianna Ghey was “fearless to be whoever she wanted to be”, her mother has said.
“She was fearless to be whoever she wanted to be,” Esther Ghey told the BBC prior to the verdicts today.
“She wanted to identify as a female, and she wanted to wear girls’ school uniform. She just did it – it wasn’t a hurdle at all for her.”
