Brianna Ghey’s mum calls for ban on social media apps for under-16s

She proposed the idea of introducing phones designed for under-control 16s

Scarlett Jenkinson and Eddie Ratcliffe were both 15 when they lured Ghey, 16, to Linear Park, Culcheth, near Warrington before stabbing her with a hunting knife on February 11, 2023.

Before committing the murder, Jenkinson had watched videos of torture online.

Speaking on the BBC’s Sunday With Laura Kuenssberg, Esther Ghey proposed the idea of introducing mobile phones that were specifically designed for children under the age of 16, as well as campaigning for searches for inappropriate material to be flagged to parents.

She said: "We’d like a law introduced so that there are mobile phones that are only suitable for under-16s.

"So if you’re over 16, you can have an adult phone, but then under the age of 16, you can have a children’s phone, which will not have all of the social media apps that are out there now.

"Also to have software that is automatically downloaded on the parents’ phone which links to the children’s phone, that can highlight key words.

"So if a child is searching the kind of words that Scarlett and Eddie were searching, it will then flag up on the parent’s phone."

Esther also said that had the searchers Brianna's killers had made had been flagged then her parents would have been "able to get some kind of help".

Ghey said her transgender daughter had accessed pro-anorexia and self-harm material online and been "very protective" over her phone, which had caused arguments.

"If she couldn’t have accessed the sites, she wouldn’t have suffered as much," Ghey added.

Related links:

• Teenagers who killed Brianna Ghey have been named
• Trans teen Brianna Ghey’s murder being investigated as possible hate crime
• Lucy Clark becomes first transgender manager in the top five tiers of English football