Education Secretary Gillian Keegan was left wiping away her tears after watching a BBC interview with Brianna Ghey’s brave mother Esther whilst appearing on Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg, earlier today.
The government minister described how the interview was ‘heart-breaking to listen to’ and that the strength shown by Esther is ‘remarkable.’
When being quizzed by the political journalist about the government’s legislation regarding child online safety – the Online Safety Act which was passed in October 2023, the Education secretary outlined how the government plans to prevent another tragic scenario from occurring similar to the death of Brianna Ghey.
Brianna Ghey’s mother, Esther is campaigning for a ban on children’s access to social media after it was revealed her daughter’s killer watched torture videos on the Dark Web after her daughter was killed by two teenagers in an anti-transgender motivated hate crime after they had watched torture videos online via the dark web.
Scarlett Jenkinson and Eddie Ratcliffe were both 15 when they killed Brianna, 16, with a hunting knife after luring her to Linear Park, Culcheth, a village near Warrington, Cheshire, on February 11 last year.
The emotional Keegan wiped away her tears after watching the poignant interview as Esther explained what she had gone through as well as the campaign she is fighting for.
Education Secretary Gillian Keegan reacts while on Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg in London
The emotional Keegan wiped away the tears after watching the poignant interview as Esther explains what she has gone through
The Education Secretary outlined what she hoped the Online Safety Act which was passed in October 2023, would to to help prevent under-16s accessing and being influenced by dangerous material
Esther Ghey (pictured) said she wants smartphones to be made available for under-16s without social media apps
The body of ‘timid’ Brianna was found lying face-down in the mud with 28 stab wounds after the ‘frenzied’ attack at a popular beauty spot in the Cheshire village
The Education Sectary who was visibly affected by the powerful interview said: ‘That was heart-breaking to listen to and the strength that she shows is actually remarkable.
‘I’m sure that she’ll be a very formidable campaigner on this and other issues – just the whole story is shocking and what they had access to, how it influenced them – it’s very sobering for every parent across the country.’
She continues: ‘This is something that parents of this generation are grappling with all the time, their children are much more tech-savvy, even if you have some of the controls that Mrs Ghey was talking about, you still know that they could potentially get around them.
‘So, this is one of the huge focusses of the legislation of the Online Safety Act which has got a lot of tools in there to try and make this content not be there in the first place, which is what we’re trying to do but also for the age verification part of it to really work.’
Scarlett Jenkinson and Eddie Ratcliffe were both 15 when they killed Brianna, 16, with a hunting knife after luring her to Linear Park, Culcheth, a village near Warrington, Cheshire
The step-mum of two then outlined the government’s thinking about the legislation as well as her own desire to ban mobile phones in schools as they are ‘Worrying for the development of children as they build their relationships.’
Esther said that she wants smartphones to be made available for under-16s without social media apps.
She is also heavily campaigning for searches for inappropriate material to be flagged to parents.
Jenkinson feasted on horror films while scouring the ‘dark web’ for footage of real-life torture and murder, with experts believing her exposure to depraved online imagery would have desensitised her, ‘goading’ her into copying what she had seen.
Speaking on the BBC’s Sunday With Laura Kuenssberg, Ms Ghey 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 keywords.
‘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.’
Brianna Ghey’s mother is calling for a ban on children’s access to social media after it was revealed her daughter’s killer watched torture videos on the Dark Web
Brianna had messaged her mother on the way to the park to say she was ‘scared’
She said if the searches her daughter’s killers had made had been flagged, their parents would have been ‘able to get some kind of help’.
Ms 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,’ she said.
Describing the internet as the ‘Wild West’, she said the focus of technology had been on making money rather than ‘how we protect people or how we can necessarily benefit society’.
The body of ‘timid’ Brianna was found lying face-down in the mud with 28 stab wounds after the ‘frenzied’ attack at a popular beauty spot in a Cheshire village on February 11 last year.
