A review has found that safeguarding services involved with a teenage girl who murdered another teenage girl did not know about the perpetrator’s “fascination with violent acts” and had “no reason to be concerned” about their contact. Scarlett Jenkinson and Eddie Ratcliffe were both jailed for life for the “brutal, planned and sadistic” murder of 16-year-old Brianna Ghey in a Warrington park in February 2023. Jenkinson, who was 15 at the time, had moved to Brianna’s school in November 2022 after spiking another pupil at her former school.
The independent safeguarding review found there had been “no reason known” to stop Jenkinson “mixing freely” with pupils after her move and nothing to suggest she was a “serious risk”. It did not cover Ratcliffe’s involvement, due to him living in neighbouring Wigan. Brianna’s mother, Esther Ghey, said the review “clearly found that nobody could have predicted the events that took place.”
Jenkinson had been seen by GPs and child mental health services in the years before the murder, but safeguarding agencies were not aware of her two previous attempts to kill Brianna. The review also found that they did not know she had used the dark web to watch videos of torture and killing, information that was revealed at her trial. In the weeks before Brianna was killed, Jenkinson had described hearing voices that were “saying unkind things and putting her down”.
The review made a series of recommendations over how agencies handle the moving of vulnerable children between schools in future and how to support the safeguarding of children online. It also said Warrington Safeguarding Partnerships should seek evidence from the police that they have addressed their learning in terms of home visits and seek assurance from each agency involved in the review that learning points had been identified and actioned.
Overall, the report revealed that “practitioners” who knew Jenkinson before the murder “were not aware of anything that would have made them think that she was a serious risk to others.” It said that “they did not know of Scarlett’s fascination with violent acts. They saw no reason to be concerned about any contact with Brianna that they knew about.” The council and other organizations involved in the case have been contacted for comment
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