Revealed: How Brianna Ghey’s courageous mum has forged an extraordinary friendship with the mother of the girl who savagely murdered her

Not even a year has passed since the two teenagers who brutally murdered her 16-year-old daughter Brianna were jailed.

Yet, as I sit opposite Esther Ghey in her small, sun-dappled office, there is a light in her eyes one would never expect to see.

For this remarkable mother refuses to be ­broken by grief, channelling unthinkable tragedy into a force for good – campaigning to stop the poison so freely available on the internet and social media from damaging young minds.

And in her quest she has received support from the most unlikely source imaginable.

For, working by her side in this tiny 10ft by 8ft space for a few hours each week is her new friend and fellow campaigner, Emma Sutton, the mother of Scarlett Jenkinson, one of her daughter’s killers.

That Esther has formed a bond with Emma will be incomprehensible to many.

After all, Jenkinson – just 15 at the time of the killing in February 2023 – and her accomplice Eddie Ratcliffe, also 15, planned Brianna’s murder in minutely chilling detail, stabbing her 28 times with a hunting knife in a Cheshire park.

The ferocity of their frenzied attack shocked even seasoned police investigators.

Yet to Esther, becoming friends with Emma was an outcome she’d hoped for after such a terrible event.

‘We’re just two mums who have faced, and are facing, the worst thing ever,’ Esther, 38, tells me in this exclusive interview. ‘What’s the use in carrying hate, or wanting to be bitter? It’s ­better to clear the air, to meet and understand you are more alike than you are different.’

Esther Ghey refuses to be ­broken by grief, channelling unthinkable tragedy into a force for good – campaigning to stop the poison available on the internet from damaging young minds

She shrugs her shoulders and appears ­bewildered when I tell her that I, and no doubt many others, find her humanity and kindness extraordinary, insisting she is simply trying to navigate her own way through the most ­traumatic period of her life.

‘Emma didn’t do it, she’s not done anything wrong,’ she says. ‘Her child has put her in a horrific situation and she has to continue ­dealing with what’s happened. It’s not only me that lost a child that day. Emma did too. We’ve both lost our children.’

While theirs is a genuine friendship, it’s also one with purpose.

As part of her bid to highlight the dangers for young people online, next week Esther launches a Mail podcast, along with me, called Parents vs the Internet, featuring conversations with experts, parents, teenagers and internet firms on how to better to protect children.

While Esther is the face of the campaign, Emma prefers to stay behind the scenes, working for a cause she feels equally passionate about.

For, during the trial which led to Emma’s daughter, Scarlett, and Eddie Ratcliffe being imprisoned for 22 years and 20 years ­respectively, it was shocking how much the pair were influenced by disturbing content online.

Jenkinson – who, heartbreakingly, was ­considered a friend by vulnerable Brianna, who was transgender – not only binged on horror films and became obsessed with serial killers, but also was inspired by real-life murder and torture ‘rooms’ on the dark web.

The pair also planned the killing in chilling messages on WhatsApp and SnapChat, that caused ­revulsion when they were read aloud in court during the trial.

Little wonder, then, in her ­statement to the court, Esther condemned her daughter’s killers: ‘The thought of Scarlett and Eddie being released from prison absolutely horrifies me.

‘I don’t believe that someone who is so disturbed and obsessed with murder and torture would ever be able to be rehabilitated.

‘I have moments where I feel sorry for them, because they have also ruined their own lives, but I have to remember that they felt no empathy for Brianna when they left her bleeding to death after their premeditated and vicious attack.’

But immediately after the 16 year olds were convicted, Esther spoke on the steps of Manchester Crown Court, extraordinarily, ­calling for ’empathy and ­compassion’ for their parents.

She later mooted the idea of meeting Emma, 50, an ex-teacher.

Considering the strength of her statement in court, it is even more remarkable that Esther today speaks warmly about having formed such a bond with Emma.

‘Meeting and working together has helped me and I think it has helped her too. You can make stories up in your head, you can think the world is against you and that people are bad, or you can face your fears head-on and see that things aren’t actually how you might imagine.

‘Emma’s not an evil person. She was just as brave, coming here to meet me, I know she must have been absolutely terrified.

‘It’s made me realise and understand that she’s just a normal person who’s also going through an horrific time. I’m glad that I reached out and I’m glad that we’ve formed this friendship.’

When Esther discusses their first meeting, which took place in March, she is careful to respect Emma’s privacy.

That Esther has formed a bond with Emma Sutton (pictured left), the mother of Brianna’s killer Scarlett Jenkinson (right), will be incomprehensible to many

That said, she confesses that their initial meeting was ‘really emotional.’

‘There were tears on both sides and I could tell she was really ­worried about coming,’ Esther says. ‘We had it in this office. The fact that she managed to get through that door at all says a lot about her.’

Esther says she and Emma – who was accompanied by her brother – talked about how their lives had been affected following Brianna’s murder.

She reflects: ‘It was a positive and respectful meeting, which allowed us initially to get to know each other. We discussed family and the challenges of parenting.’

Indeed, immediately after Jenkinson’s conviction, Emma and her wider family also made a statement in which they apologised for her actions and said their thoughts remained with Brianna and her family and friends.

The statement went on to thank Esther directly for her ‘incredible selflessness and empathy towards our family… her ­compassion is overwhelming and we are forever grateful.’

Yet for all Esther’s evident grace, it’s still astonishing for her to be in the same room as Emma, after what her daughter did.

‘Maybe it is the mindfulness [a popular form of meditation which encourages you to focus on what you feel and are aware of in that moment] and the empathy that mindfulness gives you – the understanding that nobody’s perfect,’ she says.

‘I’m not perfect, everyone makes mistakes. And this isn’t Emma’s mistake to forgive.’

Both women, head down and determined, now work together – Esther sending impassioned emails to politicians, tech firms, mobile phone companies; Emma organising events and applying for grants to help raise funds – united in their shared goals of forcing social networking sites to adopt stricter controls and improving child mental health.

‘I do really feel social media is a beast that’s got out of control,’ Esther says. ‘I’ve spoken to a lot of people working at tech firms over the past few months. Many of them are on the same page now. They have children of their own and are concerned for them, too.’

For Esther, then, this is her new daily reality. Every morning, she makes the five-minute walk from her Warrington home to the business park where her office is situated. Her old job as a food technologist has been abandoned.

But before she leaves the house, Esther opens Brianna’s bedroom door, and takes a moment to be with her daughter.

Brianna’s ashes are kept in the room, in a pink casket.

‘I open the door every morning, every single day my day starts that way.

‘Brianna’s room is painted bright pink, so when the sun comes through her window it gives a pink glow to the rest of the house.

‘She’s always there, in my mind. I never stop thinking about her but I don’t think about what ­happened to her.

‘I try to think about the good times and how she was. I choose to think about those memories and push her legacy to make sure something good comes out of the most traumatic, ­horrible situation.

‘I’m keeping her memory alive in a positive way by doing what I’m doing, that’s something that I find really comforting.’

After Brianna’s death, Esther discovered that her daughter had been ­accessing dangerous pro-anorexia and self-harm content on social media

Brianna was never more in her mind than this June, when Esther married her partner Wes Powell, 30, in a woodland ­ceremony, ­surrounded by 60 close family and friends.

Esther, and her eldest daughter, Alisha, 19, who was a bridesmaid, wore pink flowers in their hand-made flower crowns on the day, which they said was ‘for Brianna’.

‘It was a really lovely day,’ Esther says, smiling.

‘People were asking if we were going to have a picture of Brianna at the ceremony, but I couldn’t have anything that was too much of a reminder that she wasn’t there. I didn’t want to feel that sadness on the day.’

Indeed, she admits that, in the run-up to the event, she felt ‘really low’.

‘I wasn’t looking forward to it because Brianna loved weddings. I was dreading walking down the aisle and her not being there.

‘But then, on the actual day everybody was so happy it took that dread away.

‘I did get upset, there were a few tears when we said our vows, but then it was a lovely, lovely day.’

Throughout the troughs of her emotions, especially the dark days immediately after her daughter’s death, Esther says she’s relied on mindfulness to console her. It had already been a beneficial habit of hers for some eight years before Brianna’s murder.

That understanding, and the crippling anxiety suffered by ­Brianna – who, although very popular online, struggled to leave her bedroom and socialise in the real world following the Covid pandemic – led to Esther’s decision to fundraise for the Mindfulness in Schools Project (MiSP).

Key to her campaigning work is Peace & Mind UK, a community interest company (a limited entity that acts for the benefit of the community, rather than private shareholders) she set up. It has raised almost £90,000 and funded training for more than 100 mindfulness teachers in schools in her home town of Warrington alone.

Around four of those are staff members at Brianna and Scarlett Jenkinson’s former school, ­Birchwood High.

Esther, now an ­ambassador for MiSP, has seen mindfulness ­sessions in action at Birchwood High, really believes they can make a difference.

‘I struggled with my mental health when I was in my 20s after I’d had the kids,’ she confesses.

While she prefers not to go into detail, she says: ‘At that time, I dealt with it in a very different way, in a way that wasn’t helpful to me or anybody else.

‘But I wasn’t taught what was going on in my mind or how to deal with it. I think if we get ­mindfulness into schools, maybe kids would learn how to regulate their emotions at a younger age.

‘It makes you more sensitive or aware of the way things are impacting on you negatively.

‘It made me much more patient with the kids, and more ­understanding and empathetic.’

When Jenkinson (pictured) was convicted, Emma and her wider family made a statement in which they apologised for her actions and said their thoughts remained with Brianna 

Meanwhile, more than 121,000 people have now signed Esther’s petition calling for a change in the law to force mobile phone firms and social media giants to better protect children from harmful content online.

She and Brianna had running battles over her daughter’s ­’addiction’ to her mobile phone and the risks Esther thought she was taking by talking to strangers on the internet.

After Brianna’s death, Esther also discovered that her daughter, who was hospitalised with an ­eating disorder, had been ­accessing dangerous pro-anorexia and self-harm content on social media.

Our conversation is a timely one – we speak on the day ­Instagram announces plans to move tens of millions of 13 to 17-year-olds onto special ‘teen accounts’ with inbuilt content and messaging restrictions, ahead of stricter controls to be imposed on all social media firms when the new Online Safety Act comes into force in spring.

Esther says: ‘For the first time they are admitting there is a ­problem, so it is welcome.

‘But my understanding is ­children will still be able to accept their own followers on these accounts.

‘From my experience, and from speaking to other parents, ­children want to look like they have got lots of followers so they will accept strangers. That responsibility shouldn’t lie on their shoulders.’

Esther’s determination to channel her grief into a positive experience has led to her meeting Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer and other senior politicians, the bosses of internet regulator, Ofcom, and senior executives at mobile phone firms.

She is full of ideas and tells me her next project is finding ­someone to research exactly what age is appropriate for children to start looking at social media. There are so few studies on the subject and so many older teenagers have told her they were exposed to it too young, she says.

Although she is busier than ever before, her marriage has given her much-needed emotional ­grounding. After their nuptials, she and Wes – who supports his wife’s zeal to change lives – had a brief honeymoon ‘in Scotland with the dogs’. But the break didn’t last long and she was back to work straight afterwards.

I wonder whether the ­campaigning has become ­something of a crutch. Being so busy, surely, must make it easier to cope with her sense of loss?

‘I have good days and bad days,’ Esther says. ‘Focusing on these positive things I’m doing, and keeping myself busy, it really does genuinely help.

‘I can understand now why so many people go on to set up a charity when they lose someone. It keeps their memory alive. It helps.’

• To donate to Esther’s campaigns go to https://peaceandminduk.org/