Brianna Ghey’s mum says school phone ban would’ve helped her daughter
Brianna Ghey’s mother, Esther Ghey. (Getty)
Brianna Ghey's mother, Esther Ghey. (Getty)
The mother of Brianna Ghey, Esther, has said that a school smartphone ban could have helped her trans daughter, who was murdered in Cheshire in 2023.
Scarlett Jenkinson and Eddie Ratcliffe were found guilty of murder after Brianna was stabbed 28 times in a Warrington park in February 2023, in what was described by the trial judge as an exceptionally brutal and sadistic attack.
Last year, both were sentenced to life imprisonment, with Jenkinson ordered to serve a minimum of 22 years, and Ratcliffe at least 20. Ratcliffe’s appeal against his sentence was turned down in December.
In a bid to ensure others don’t have to go through what she did, Brianna’s mum, Esther, has written to education secretary Bridget Phillipson and prime minister Keir Starmer calling for a statutory phone ban in schools.
The #PhoneFreeEducation campaign, backed by celebrities including actress Kate Winslet, actor Stephen Graham and Will Young, urges the government to provide funding to schools for pouches to lock phones away during the school day.
Esther said her daughter had been “completely addicted” to her phone and that the initiative to lock phones away during the school day had proven successful at Brianna’s old school in Warrington.
She said that during Brianna’s three years at Birchwood Community High School in Warrington, there were 120 safeguarding logs and 116 behaviour logs around her phone use.
She told BBC Breakfast that she would receive multiple calls from her daughter’s school regarding her refusing to put her phone away.
“As a parent, I really felt like I was failing. I didn’t know what to do.
Following Birchwood Community High School introducing pouches to lock phones last September, head teacher Emma Mills said the affect has been “immense”.
‘This issue is just too big for anybody to handle on their own’
Esther said: “If this had been in place for Brianna, it would have helped her to focus on her school work. She wouldn’t have been getting into so much trouble because all of the issues were around the phone use.
“She would have been able to focus on her education. She would have been able to make friends with her peers.
“I think that schools, parents and children need support from government, because this issue is just too big for anybody to handle on their own.”
A government spokesperson had said schools already have the power to ban phones and that better protections have been brought in to protect children from harmful content through the Online Safety Act.
Research from the Children’s Commissioner, released in April, shows that 99.8 per cent of primary schools and 90 per cent of secondary schools already have policies in place to stop the use of mobile phones during the school day.
Esther has said “the funding needs to be in place” to enable every school to have restrictions on phone use.
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