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www.monday.com Brianna

1:27

Jai was just 16 when she was killed. Despite

1:30

her anxiety and her struggling at

1:32

times in her adolescence, she

1:34

was outgoing and she was popular.

1:37

She had a whole life ahead of her. Good

1:41

times don't have to cost anything and the

1:43

best times are the times when you're

1:45

just completely relaxed and thinking

1:47

of her at home. Popping

1:51

her head in a little fluffy

1:53

pink pajamas. You've got to say,

1:56

mum, can we have a Domino's pizza? And

1:58

yeah, it's just being at home. and

2:00

being with her and because she was

2:02

such a home bird and she's why

2:04

it was so difficult because she was just

2:06

always there, she was always at home. When

2:08

I came home she would be home. Brianna's

2:12

mum Esther Jai is determined to try and

2:14

find a way to channel her grief. She's

2:17

petitioning for a change in law to ensure

2:20

child safety online and

2:22

as she told the BBC's

2:24

Laura Kansberg she holds compassion not

2:26

hate towards the parents of Brianna's

2:28

killers. I think that

2:32

I would like to say that

2:35

if she did want to contact

2:37

me and she does want to

2:39

speak then I'm open to that.

2:42

I'd like to understand

2:44

more how their

2:47

life was and what they went through

2:49

and I also want

2:51

her to know that I don't blame

2:53

her for what her child's done and

2:57

I also want her to know that I

3:00

understand how difficult being a parent is

3:02

in this current day

3:05

and age with technology

3:07

and phones and

3:09

the internet and how hard it is to actually

3:11

monitor what your child is on. So

3:15

yeah if she ever wants to speak to me I am I'm

3:17

here. The

3:24

families involved have had their lives ripped

3:27

apart. Where do they go

3:29

from here? And can

3:31

anything be learnt from Brianna's death? From

3:35

the Guardian, I'm Nashinik Bah.

3:38

Today in Vokis, the murder

3:40

of Brianna Jai. Alan

3:49

Pitt, you're north of England editor at the

3:51

Guardian and you've been covering the murder of

3:53

teenager Brianna Jai. It's

3:55

a really harrowing and unusual

3:57

case but can you

3:59

begin? with the day it happened back on

4:02

the 11th of February last year. So the

4:05

first information that came out was that a 16

4:07

year old girl had been stabbed to death in

4:10

Cultures Linear Park which is a park built on

4:12

an old railway line in Warrington.

4:15

Emergency services attended but the 16

4:18

year old was pronounced dead at the scene.

4:20

A post-mortem examination is taking place

4:23

to establish the exact cause of

4:25

death. The initial statement that the

4:27

police put out simply said that they were appealing

4:29

for witnesses, anybody who would have been there at

4:31

the time. It was about three o'clock in the

4:34

afternoon when Brianna was killed, the park was fairly

4:36

busy, they knew there would have been lots of

4:38

families there and people walking their dogs. It's

4:40

a well-known dog walking spot, we know that, we

4:43

know it's popular with families. I'd asked for anyone

4:45

who was in the area between around about half

4:47

past one in the afternoon and 4 p.m. to

4:49

contact us in relation to that. And then

4:51

we learned that two teenagers had been arrested

4:53

and were being questioned on suspicion of murder.

4:55

And as soon as we learned that Brianna

4:57

was trans, of course the big question was,

5:00

was she killed for being trans and

5:02

was this a hate crime motivated by

5:04

transphobia? Very quickly within

5:07

48 hours of Brianna being killed, Cheshire

5:10

police came out and said, at

5:12

this time we have no information

5:14

to suggest that this was a

5:16

hate crime. And what was the

5:19

reaction locally and nationally? Well locally

5:21

people were horrified. It's obviously terrifying

5:23

when any murder happens, particularly when

5:26

it's a young person and

5:28

particularly when it was a girl. Once

5:30

it emerged that Brianna was transgender,

5:32

her murder became not just a

5:35

point of sadness locally but nationally

5:37

and even internationally. A lot

5:40

of you might already know about this, as it's been on

5:42

Facebook, ITV News, BBC,

5:45

everything. It's currently going viral.

5:48

We want to get justice for what happened to

5:50

Bri. Because it wasn't

5:52

right, she was taken innocently

5:54

for no reason. I think what

5:57

really stands out to me in my memory is

5:59

just the outpouring of grief

6:01

and sadness that there was for Brianna,

6:03

not just within her own community,

6:06

within her school in Warrington, but

6:08

also much further afield. There were

6:10

people in New York, in Canada,

6:13

in the Far East who were

6:15

making videos online expressing their sadness,

6:17

their grief, their anger. And

6:19

people were really suspicious with the police and

6:21

wondering why they were so quick to say

6:23

that they didn't think it was a hate

6:25

crime. Can you tell me

6:27

more about what the police said and did in their

6:30

investigation? How did it proceed over the coming weeks and

6:32

months? So, initially

6:34

after the murder, they put out an appeal

6:37

for witnesses, anybody who was in the park

6:39

at the time. And quickly a lot of

6:41

people came forward and lots of people saw

6:43

the two teenage suspects in the park, including

6:46

people who actually knew them. So

6:48

identity was not really at play

6:52

fairly early on and within 24 hours

6:54

they knew that Scarlett Jenkinson and Eddie Radcliffe

6:56

were the two teenagers who had been seen

6:58

meeting Brianna off the bus and then walking

7:01

to the park with her. There

7:03

was also CCTV of the pair of them

7:05

walking home, just the two of them with

7:07

no Brianna. So the two

7:09

of them were taken into custody 24 hours after

7:11

the murder and they

7:14

both had different stories. And

7:24

in the trial of Scarlett Jenkinson and Eddie Radcliffe,

7:27

who have only been known as Girl X and

7:29

Boy Y until last Friday, it started at the

7:31

end of November last year at Manchester Crown Court.

7:34

You were there for nearly every day of

7:37

the trial. Can you tell me what it was

7:39

like? Yeah, Court

7:41

2 at Manchester Crown Court. It was a

7:43

pretty tense place to be. My seat had

7:46

a fairly good view of the bulletproof

7:49

dock where Scarlett Jenkinson and Eddie Radcliffe

7:51

were sitting. They weren't sat right next

7:53

to each other. They had trained

7:56

intermediaries sitting either side of them who were

7:58

there to make sure that both of the

8:00

children understood the court process and were able

8:02

to participate in it. It was

8:04

quite noticeable that neither Starlet nor Eddie ever

8:07

looked at each other and they certainly didn't

8:09

say anything to each other, not least because

8:11

Eddie has actually been diagnosed with

8:13

selective mutism since he was charged

8:15

with the murder and hasn't spoken a word to anybody

8:17

apart from his mum. And there

8:20

were also security guards in the dock with them.

8:22

And the judge and the barristers

8:24

involved in proceedings took great care

8:27

to make sure that they were

8:29

tailoring their language so

8:31

that both Eddie and Scarlet understood what was going

8:33

on. They referred to them always by their first

8:35

names in court rather than Mr Ratcliffe and Ms Jenkinson,

8:37

which is what they might have done if they were

8:39

adults. So a lot of

8:41

accommodation for them both. And

8:44

so as the court heard the evidence,

8:47

what did you learn about how they planned

8:49

Brianna's murder? So Brianna

8:51

wasn't actually the first person that

8:54

Eddie Ratcliffe and Scarlet Jenkinson discussed killing.

8:56

They had a sort of informal kill

8:59

list of other children that they disliked

9:01

for various different reasons. The others were

9:03

all boys. They settled

9:05

on Brianna, it seems, because they had some kind

9:08

of cack-handed attempt to lure one of the boys out

9:10

to the park and using

9:12

a fake social media profile and he didn't

9:14

bite. And they said, oh, well, let's

9:17

just do the same plan, but we'll do it for Brianna.

9:19

It will be easier. They originally

9:21

wanted to kill Brianna two weeks earlier

9:23

than they actually did. They had

9:25

it all set up. It was the same plan,

9:28

same location, same park. But at the last minute,

9:30

Brianna contacted Scarlet Jenkinson, said, oh, sorry, I can't

9:32

come because she had to go to a family

9:34

meal. There were messages where Scarlet

9:36

says she's so pissed off about this, that

9:39

all the fun has been ruined. But

9:41

nonetheless, Eddie and Scarlet, on that particular day, they

9:44

still met up and they still went to Culture

9:46

Linear Park. There's videos of them messing around at

9:48

the park. And the detectives who

9:50

were investigating the case came to view this as something

9:52

of a dry run for the murder itself. So

9:55

after that aborted attempt, Scarlet

9:57

Jenkinson handwrote a

9:59

plan. for how they were going

10:01

to murder Brianna. So literally

10:03

wrote it out in her own handwriting. Yeah,

10:06

yeah, and it was headline

10:09

victim Brianna Jai. It had the date

10:11

and it had the location. Said that

10:13

they were going to meet her off the bus

10:15

at cultured library. They were going to walk to

10:17

the linear park. It detailed who was going to

10:19

stab her and where. So

10:21

really quite chilling level of detail. I remember we

10:23

saw this in court and we saw her tiny

10:25

childlike handwriting. There was just something that was just

10:27

so chilling about that. She hand wrote this plan.

10:29

She took a picture of the plan and she

10:31

texted it to Eddie. So this is how the

10:34

jury could have been in no doubt that they

10:36

were both in on the plan and both of

10:38

them knew exactly what they were going to do. What

10:40

about the conversations they had about Brianna? What did

10:43

we learn about their interest in her from those?

10:45

So Scarlett Jenkinson only met Brianna

10:47

a few months before the murder

10:49

when she was transferred to Birchwood

10:51

High School where Brianna was a

10:54

pupil. She'd been asked to leave

10:56

her previous school after bringing cannabis

10:58

edibles into school and giving them

11:00

to younger pupils. So she transferred

11:02

to Brianna's school and they became

11:04

friends apparently, Scarlett said,

11:06

because she complimented Brianna on her eyeliner.

11:08

So it was Scarlett who introduced Brianna

11:10

into the conversations. Eddie actually didn't meet

11:13

Brianna at all until the day of

11:15

the murder and in December, so a

11:17

couple of months before the murder, Scarlett

11:19

texted Eddie and said, I'm obsessed over

11:21

someone I know but don't have feelings

11:23

for them. She's called Brianna. I don't

11:26

know how to explain. So Eddie

11:28

only met Brianna for the first time on

11:30

the day of the murder but while he

11:32

and Scarlett were planning the killing, he repeatedly

11:34

referred to Brianna not as she but as

11:36

it. And when he gave

11:38

evidence, he insisted he wasn't transphobic but

11:41

the language that he used was

11:43

certainly transphobic and very

11:46

dehumanizing. Scarlett on the other hand almost

11:49

always referred to Brianna as she. There's

11:51

times when there's one message where she

11:53

says to Eddie, oh she's prettier

11:55

than me, that bitch. And when she gave evidence, she

11:57

said she thought Brianna was really pretty. She was actually

12:00

attracted to as she said.

12:02

Having pored through the details of this

12:04

case and of Brianna's life, did

12:06

you learn any new information in court? Yeah

12:10

I think perhaps I had

12:12

some preconceptions about what teenage

12:14

murderers would be like and

12:16

what their backgrounds would be like but

12:19

we learnt when they gave evidence about

12:21

their family backgrounds, about their siblings, so

12:24

Eddie for example, his mum who was

12:26

in court every single day. She's worked

12:28

as a ski instructor and graphic designer

12:30

and his dad was a manager at

12:32

a truck company and

12:34

Scarlett's mum was a secondary school

12:37

teacher and her dad runs a plastering and

12:39

building business. Some of Scarlett's brothers

12:41

used to come to court, she's got three big brothers.

12:44

Eddie is the middle child of three.

12:47

We learnt that they were both fairly

12:49

conscientious at school. Eddie was considered very

12:51

clever in particular, he loved science and

12:53

even since his arrest when he's been

12:55

held in a secure children's home he

12:58

studied for his GCSEs and he managed to

13:00

pass eight and he's doing 4A levels, teaching

13:02

himself really from the unit at the moment.

13:05

So they're clearly very high functioning and

13:07

intelligent young people and that made it

13:10

sort of all the more baffling

13:13

and incomprehensible how and

13:15

why they would do something like this. And

13:30

Helen, what about the relationship between Scarlett and Eddie

13:32

themselves? What did we learn about them? Before

13:35

the trial started a lot of people who

13:37

didn't know the situation wrongly assumed

13:39

that Eddie Ratcliffe and Scarlett Jenkinson

13:42

were boyfriend and girlfriend, that it

13:44

was some sort of twisted plot

13:46

by two lovers but it wasn't

13:48

and both of them when they gave

13:51

evidence said that they were just friends. So they'd met

13:53

when they were in year seven when they were just

13:55

11 at Cultured High School in

13:57

Warrington and it wasn't

13:59

a sort of... instant friendship. Scarlett described their

14:01

relationship initially as frenemies, so they

14:03

were like friends but also enemies.

14:06

She said Eddie was weird and Eddie said,

14:08

well, she was weird and that she was

14:10

always saying weird stuff. There was

14:12

one bit that really sticks in my mind where he said,

14:14

well, in year eight she used to go around claiming that

14:17

she was a Satanist and she seemed to

14:19

revel in saying kind of

14:21

outrageous things. And nonetheless, they became firm

14:24

friends. A lot of their friendship was

14:26

conducted online. They lived about five miles

14:28

apart from each other. So after school,

14:30

they would communicate on WhatsApp. They used to

14:33

play video games together. And

14:35

from the age of about 14, they

14:37

started discussing what Scarlett's

14:39

barrister referred to as dark

14:41

materials. And she told the

14:43

jury that she'd developed this interest in

14:45

watching videos of torture and murder online

14:47

aged 14 and that she'd worked out

14:49

how to download a special browser onto

14:51

her phone to access the dark web.

14:53

And she boasted to Eddie that she

14:55

liked going in these so-called red rooms

14:57

where you could watch real,

15:00

apparently real murders and real torture taking

15:03

place. That

15:05

sounds really dark. I mean, did no one

15:07

else notice that she had these interests or

15:09

obsessions at the time? There

15:12

seemed to be particularly two sides to

15:14

Scarlett Jenkinson. There was a Scarlett Jenkinson

15:16

who was pretty quiet at school and

15:18

used to hang around in the inclusion

15:20

room, which is where she was often

15:22

found with Brianna at school. She said

15:24

she didn't socialize much. She

15:26

had this boyfriend who we can't name who was

15:29

a year older than her, went to the local

15:31

sixth form college and Eddie told

15:33

police that Scarlett was absolutely obsessed with this

15:35

boyfriend to the extent that she carved his

15:37

name on her arm with

15:40

a knife. And that, I

15:42

mean, Brianna wasn't the only child

15:45

that these two teenagers talked about

15:47

killing. There were actually at

15:49

least four other children who they discussed

15:52

in quite detail, murdering. And

15:54

two of them were boys who Scarlett

15:56

had taken against because she said that

15:58

they'd been mean to her boyfriend. friends

16:01

and therefore they deserved death. Eddie

16:04

as well, Eddie's obsession mostly seemed to be

16:06

focused on a girl that he fancied at

16:08

school who was known in court simply by

16:10

the letter A and throughout their

16:12

messages there are thousands of messages that the

16:14

police recovered between Eddie and

16:16

Scarlett where they're discussing murder

16:19

techniques, the best ways of killing people.

16:21

Throughout these conversations there's also Eddie just

16:23

being obsessed with this girl asking Scarlett for

16:26

love advice when should he ask her out

16:28

and it

16:30

was just the sort of banality of those sorts of

16:33

questions mixed in with this murderous chap

16:35

which would have been pretty sick in itself

16:38

but the fact that we know that they actually went

16:40

on to murder Brianna makes it

16:42

just completely chilling. Helen,

17:00

in the end the jury was out for

17:02

just over four hours. Can you tell me

17:04

that when they came back and delivered their

17:06

verdict? Although I think those

17:08

of us who'd sat through all of the evidence thought

17:10

that it was very likely that both

17:12

teenagers would be found guilty, you know the

17:14

stakes are just so high in any

17:17

murder case particularly involving such young

17:19

people. So we

17:22

were all sort of collectively holding our

17:24

breath really when the jury filed in

17:26

and the judges clerk asked if

17:28

the jury had reached verdict on which

17:30

they were unanimous and the

17:32

four men stood up and said yes they had

17:36

and they actually spoke very quietly it was kind of

17:38

weird we couldn't hear the verdicts at first and nor

17:40

could Eddie and Scarlett so they had to be delivered

17:42

twice and I was trying to look in the dark

17:44

and see if either of the teenagers were

17:46

reacting at all they didn't as far

17:48

as I can see that their parents were in

17:51

bits in the court crying I mean

17:53

just just horrendous. And what about

17:55

Brianna's mum? How did she

17:57

respond? There was this moment

18:00

after the convictions just before Christmas

18:02

when she walked out of court

18:05

to be confronted with a wall

18:07

of photographers and microphones and she

18:09

gave this incredibly powerful and moving

18:11

statement where she urged compassion

18:13

and empathy for the parents of the

18:15

teenagers who had taken her daughter's life

18:17

and said that they'd lost a child

18:20

too. Brianna was larger

18:22

than love. She

18:24

was funny and witty and fearless.

18:27

We miss Brianna so much and

18:30

our house feels empty without her lost her. You

18:34

know how scared of my usually

18:36

fearless child must have been? When

18:40

she was alone in that park with

18:43

someone that she called her friend will

18:45

haunt me forever. Please

18:50

have some empathy and compassion for

18:53

the families of the young people convicted of

18:55

this horrific crime. They too

18:57

have lost a child and they

19:00

must live the rest of their lives knowing what

19:02

their child has done. My

19:05

family and I request some healing space for

19:07

the next few weeks. However,

19:10

I will be back at the end of January

19:12

to continue my campaigning for better

19:14

mental health support for young people and their

19:16

families. Thank you. Helen,

19:28

just before Scarlett Jenkinson and Eddie Ratcliffe

19:30

were due to be sentenced last Friday,

19:32

we heard new reports about what Scarlett

19:35

was saying had happened. Can

19:37

you tell me more? Yeah, it

19:39

was quite a moment in court. We

19:41

heard that there had been a new

19:43

psychiatric report commissioned by Scarlett's legal team

19:45

and it turned out that Scarlett was

19:47

completely changing her story and she had

19:49

told a psychiatrist that she had in

19:51

fact carried out the murder,

19:54

that she was responsible for at least some of

19:56

the stab wounds. She said that she had enjoyed

19:58

it and this was a real about turn

20:00

because the entire time, including during the trial,

20:02

she insisted that she hadn't actually taken part

20:05

in the killing and that it was Eddie

20:07

who was responsible for the stab wounds. She

20:10

also gave some sort of insight into

20:12

potentially her motives and she said that

20:14

she killed Brianna because she thought Brianna

20:16

was her friend but that one day

20:18

Brianna was going to leave her and

20:20

therefore if she killed her, Brianna would

20:23

somehow be with her always. It was

20:26

deeply shocking to hear that in court. What

20:30

sentence did the judge impose? Very

20:32

long sentences for children. Scarlett

20:35

Jenkinson was sentenced to a minimum of 22 years

20:38

and Eddie Radcliffe 20 years. They

20:42

both got life sentences, although children don't

20:44

officially get life sentences, they're called sentences

20:46

at His Majesty's pleasure. And

20:49

the judge told them that if they were adults,

20:51

those minimum terms would be much higher. I've

20:53

rarely heard of children this young

20:55

getting such long sentences. Both of them were only

20:57

15 when they carried out this murder last year.

21:01

Well what did Justice Yip say

21:03

about her decision? Well she told

21:05

them that they had both taken part in

21:07

what she said was a brutal and planned

21:09

murder which was sadistic in its nature. This

21:12

was undoubtedly a very serious

21:15

offence with multiple aggravating suits

21:17

too. This is

21:19

the context in which I impose

21:21

minimum terms which are lengthy

21:24

for offenders of your age, albeit

21:26

significantly less than an

21:29

equivalent sentence for an adult. And

21:31

what I found very interesting is that she

21:33

said there was a secondary motive at play

21:36

which she said was hostility towards Brianna because

21:38

of her transgender identity. Your

21:40

messages about Brianna were

21:42

transphobic. You consistently

21:45

referred to her in a way

21:47

that was dehumanising, calling her I.

21:50

And Helen that's significant because up until this point

21:52

Brianna's death has been quite politicised and I wonder

21:55

if you could tell me more about that and

21:57

the significance of what the judge has now said.

22:00

very quickly after Brianna was murdered

22:02

last February, Cheshire Police caused quite

22:04

a lot of controversy by saying

22:06

they had no information to suggest

22:08

that Brianna's murder was motivated by

22:10

transphobia. A lot of people found

22:12

that very difficult to believe. And

22:14

then once the trial started and

22:16

we heard details of thousands of

22:18

messages that were shared between Scarlett

22:20

and Eddie, and that

22:23

anger only built once the trial started

22:25

and we heard all of the messages

22:27

that were shared between Scarlett and Eddie,

22:29

and particularly the language that Eddie used

22:31

to describe Brianna, he always referred to

22:34

her as it rather than she. He

22:37

called her a femboy thing and

22:39

he discussed wanting to know if she would scream

22:41

like a man or a girl and said he

22:44

just really wanted to see what size dick

22:46

that she had. And that

22:48

was clearly transphobic language but that wasn't

22:50

framed as such for the jury. So

22:52

it was quite a moment that the

22:54

judge came out on the record and

22:56

said that that language was transphobic and

22:59

that the murder was partially motivated by

23:01

a hatred of Brianna's transgender identity. It

23:04

does feel like, I mean quite aside from that, that there's

23:06

been this really ugly, prorient

23:08

sideshow running alongside this case. It says

23:10

something about our culture, our

23:12

appetite for outrage. Did

23:15

you get a sense of that as you were reporting it as

23:17

a month went on? Yeah, I

23:19

think so. I mean, I don't know if it's the

23:21

rise of true crime documentaries. I mean,

23:23

The Daily Mail is actually running a

23:25

daily, almost daily podcast about this case

23:27

that kind of makes everybody feel like

23:29

they are also detectives and that they

23:31

know more than the police or that

23:33

they have extra information that the jury's

23:35

not listening to. So people

23:38

were commenting all over the place and often getting

23:40

in trouble with the judge actually by passing

23:42

their own sort of judgment on what was really

23:44

going on here. What's

23:48

going on? How Brianna Jai's death

23:50

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23:52

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24:41

Today in Focus is supported by the

24:43

Boston Consulting Group podcast In

24:45

Her Element. In

24:48

Her Element is a podcast that talks

24:50

to women at the vanguard of business,

24:53

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24:55

that's Element, spelt with two

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In Her Element, spelt with

25:33

two L's, subscribe wherever you

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get your podcasts. Ellen,

25:43

alongside the intense publicity around this

25:45

case, there was also this huge

25:48

clamour to name the perpetrators, something

25:50

that isn't normal in cases where

25:52

the defendants are minors. The

25:55

judge did agree to it, and it's why we've been able

25:57

to name them throughout this episode so far. Why

26:00

did she lift the usual restrictions to allow

26:02

their names to become public? Yeah,

26:05

she decided to lift the restrictions because

26:07

they would have fallen away anyway when

26:10

both Eddie and Scarlett turned

26:12

18 and she felt that there

26:14

was significant public interest

26:17

in this case and not just interest

26:19

as in it's interesting but

26:21

also she felt that there was a

26:23

real need in society to try to

26:25

understand how to apparently

26:27

fairly normal stable teenagers could commit

26:29

such a crime and she felt

26:31

that by allowing full reporting including

26:33

photos and the names of these

26:35

young people we might be able to get to

26:37

the bottom of why on earth they committed such

26:40

a brutal murder. But what

26:42

does the public gain? What can

26:44

we understand knowing the identities

26:46

and the pictures and who

26:48

their families are at this stage? Yeah,

26:52

I feel quite uneasy to be honest

26:54

about the naming of young people. I

26:56

think if you believe in rehabilitation which

27:00

I definitely do, then it can

27:02

only be hampered by two

27:04

young people being branded as murderers and they are

27:06

murderers, we don't need to sugarcoat that. But

27:10

if we hope that one day they're going to be able

27:12

to be released and not be a day into society it's

27:14

not going to be helpful if their photos are all over

27:16

the internet. If you look

27:18

at what happened in the James Bulger case in

27:21

the 90s, John Venables and Robert Thompson in

27:23

Liverpool they had to be given entirely

27:25

new identities when they were released because

27:27

there were genuine fears that they would

27:29

be hunted down and potentially killed. So

27:33

does the public learn anything? I suppose it means

27:35

that we can report a bit more fully about

27:37

what happened in

27:39

terms of these two young people at their school,

27:41

the fact that Scarlett went to school with Brianna

27:44

and that she only turned up at Brianna's school

27:46

after getting in trouble at her old school. So

27:48

it allows us to fill in a few blanks

27:50

in the story. Is

27:52

it really necessary or is it mostly

27:54

just feeding our desire to name and

27:56

shame? I'm not sure. And

28:00

then how will Scarlett Jenkinson and Eddie Rickliffe be

28:02

serving their sentences? So

28:04

ever since their arrest, both Scarlett and

28:06

Eddie have been kept in separate, secure

28:08

children's homes and they will stay

28:10

there until they are 18, at which point

28:12

they will transfer to the adult estate. These

28:15

two young people are going to be in their late

28:17

30s at the very earliest when they're released,

28:20

so they've got a long stretch ahead of them in

28:22

the prison system. Ellen,

28:24

do you think there is anything that could have been

28:26

done differently? Was there any sense at the end of

28:28

all of this that Brianna's murder could have been prevented?

28:31

I've thought about this a lot and

28:33

the conclusion that I've come to is

28:36

probably not. During

28:39

the trial I was sat very near

28:41

Eddie's parents and I was looking at them trying

28:43

to work out what might be going through their

28:45

minds and I'm sure they're racking their brains thinking,

28:48

is there anything we could have done? I suppose

28:50

theoretically they could have looked at his phone. Scarlett's

28:53

parents could have looked at her phone and if they

28:55

had they would have found these horrendous messages and

28:58

maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe they would have taken

29:00

them seriously and nipped it in the bud.

29:03

Apart from that, there were no outward signs

29:05

that these were two children who were going

29:08

to commit a terrible, terrible murder. Although

29:10

Scarlett had been in trouble and had

29:13

been suspended from her previous school for

29:15

this incident involving cannabis edibles, it

29:17

wasn't like she'd brought a knife into school. It's

29:19

not like she had a history with violence. And yes,

29:21

some of her school friends have since come out and

29:24

say, oh, she used to say loads of sick things. Let's

29:26

be honest, a lot of teenagers say some sick,

29:28

stupid things and it doesn't mean that that is

29:30

going to translate into real life violence. And

29:34

one of the things that's really stayed with

29:36

me in this case is actually Brianna's mum

29:38

and the response that she's had to Brianna's

29:40

killing, which is a lot of compassion, so

29:42

much dignity and a response to the killers

29:45

and their parents. Can you tell me more

29:47

about what she said and how she'd like

29:49

Brianna to be remembered? Yeah,

29:52

I think Esther Jai is

29:55

an incredibly dignified and compassionate

29:57

person. There was a victim impact

29:59

statement read on... her behalf in court at

30:01

the sentencing. And she

30:03

said that her motivation was to want

30:05

to help to make society a safer

30:07

place and that she

30:09

wanted something good to come out of this

30:12

murder. So I'd like

30:14

to see mobile phone companies take

30:16

more responsibility. It's so

30:19

difficult for parents now to

30:22

safeguard their children, which we'd like our

30:25

families and parents to back and sign.

30:28

We'd like a law introduced so

30:30

that there are mobile phones that

30:32

are only suitable for under

30:35

16. So if you're over 16, you can

30:37

have an adult phone, but then under

30:39

the age of 16, you can have a

30:41

children's phone, which will not have all of

30:43

the social media apps that are out

30:45

there now. And also

30:48

to have

30:50

software that's automatically downloaded on a

30:52

parent's phone, which links the children's

30:54

phone and it can highlight keywords.

30:58

And ever since Brianna was killed, Esther

31:00

has been raising money. She's raised over

31:02

50,000 pounds now for

31:05

mindfulness training in schools. And she really believes

31:07

that young people need time to sort of

31:09

take a breath and to think through their

31:11

feelings and what they want to do. So

31:14

she's raising money for that. And

31:16

along with Brianna's head teacher, Emma

31:18

Nichols, she's set up a community

31:21

interest company called Peace and Mind,

31:23

which is all about spreading the

31:25

word of mindfulness and empathy and

31:28

compassion and understanding. And

31:30

this week in parliament, her local MP Charlotte

31:32

Nichols is going to start a debate on

31:34

the issue. She's absolutely determined that

31:36

Brianna's death cannot be in vain and

31:38

that something positive must come out of

31:40

something so dreadful. Helen,

31:43

thanks so much for your time. Thanks

31:45

for having me. That

31:49

was Helen Pidge, the Guardian's North of England

31:51

editor. You can follow

31:53

her reporting of this case and

31:55

more all at theguardian.com. That's

31:59

it for today. I'm Nacinac

32:01

Bal and this episode is produced by Lucy

32:03

Hoff. Sound Design was by Rudy

32:05

Zagatlo. The Executive Producer

32:07

was Phil Maynard. We'll be back

32:09

again tomorrow. This

32:19

is The Guardian. Just

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