Brianna Ghey’s killer was not considered a serious threat, according to the investigation

According to a review, child protective services who interacted with a girl before she murdered a teenager were unaware of her “fascination with violent acts” and had “no reason to be concerned” about the contact.

Scarlett Jenkinson and Eddie Ratcliffe were sentenced to life imprisonment 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 transferred to Brianna’s school in November 2022 after hit a younger student at her former school with a stick.

A independent security review There is “no known reason” that would have prevented Jenkinson from “freely interacting” with students after her move, and there is nothing to suggest that she poses a “serious danger”.

Jenkinson and Ratcliffe were found guilty of Brianna’s murder in December 2023, and a judge lifted reporting restrictions on their names two months later when they announced the verdict.

A review of Jenkinson’s contacts was subsequently ordered, including her interactions with aid agencies in Warrington.

Ratcliffe was not included because he lived in neighboring Wigan.

It said Jenkinson transferred from Culcheth High School to Birchwood Community High School in November 2022 after giving a 13-year-old a cannabis candy, causing him to become ill.

It emerged that Jenkinson had been treated by general practitioners and child and adolescent psychiatric clinics in the years before the murder, but the protective services were unaware of her two previous murder attempts on Brianna in January 2023.

It was also established that the authorities were unaware that she had watched videos of torture and murder on the dark web, a fact that only came to light during her trial.

The review states that Jenkinson met with general practitioners and child and adolescent psychiatrists in November 2021 to discuss anxiety and self-harm, and there were several further meetings.

It says that in the weeks before Brianna’s murder, Jenkinson heard voices “saying unkind things to her and belittling her.”

However, it was said that clinical evidence supporting Jenkinson’s diagnosis of “antisocial behaviour disorder”, which was established at her sentencing, had not been available before the murder because mental health services were “still assessing and formulating a clinical opinion” at the time of the attack.

The review also said Jenkinson’s beating of the younger student in September 2023 was “at best unkind or, at worse, a deliberate attempt to create a potentially frightening experience for someone” but not conduct “at a level that could reasonably be expected to give practitioners suspicion that (she) would commit murder.”

However, the review found that a safeguarding file containing unsubstantiated suspicions about Jenkinson’s cannabis use and history of self-harm had not been shared between schools, which would have been necessary to ensure the success of her move.

The review said police decided not to take further action and to support the intervention of Culcheth High School after the spiked student declined to press charges.

Nevertheless, the court concluded that an officer should have visited Jenkinson and her parents to clarify that this was a “serious offence” and to “assess the family dynamics”.

It concluded that “practitioners” who knew Jenkinson before the murder “were not aware of anything that would have led them to believe that she posed a serious danger to others.”

“They were unaware of Scarlett’s fascination with violence,” it said.

“They saw no cause for concern about any contact with Brianna that they knew of.”

The study made a number of recommendations on how authorities should deal with vulnerable children moving between schools in the future and how to support the protection of children online.

It also said that Warrington Safeguarding Partnerships should require evidence from the police that they have implemented their learning in relation to home visits and that they should seek assurance from each agency involved in the review that learning points have been identified and implemented.