Qualla: Brianna Ghey

Brianna Ghey: Introduction

Fri, 29 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit OwenBlacker, CC0. Brianna Ghey was sixteen years old, a Year 11 pupil at Birchwood Community High School, a TikTok dancer with tens of thousands of followers, and a daughter who texted her mother Esther whenever she left the house. On the afternoon of 11 February 2023 she walked from her home in Birchwood to a bus stop, sent her mother a message from the bus, met two classmates at Culcheth Linear Park, and was murdered there. She is buried under her own name at St Elphin's Church in Warrington. Her mother has spent every year since trying to make sure that some good is wrenched out of her loss.

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Image: OwenBlacker | CC0

Brianna Ghey: Brianna

Fri, 29 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Pixie2000 at English Wikipedia, Public domain. Brianna was born on 7 November 2006. She had been diagnosed as a teenager with ADHD, autism and anxiety, and at school she did not attend regular lessons; she worked one-on-one in an inclusion room. Her mother later told the court that the autism made it harder for her daughter t...

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Image: Pixie2000 at English Wikipedia | Public domain

Brianna Ghey: What the Court Found

Fri, 29 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Hullian111, CC BY-SA 4.0. Two classmates were arrested the next morning. They were Scarlett Jenkinson and Eddie Ratcliffe, both fifteen. Jenkinson had met Brianna in Birchwood's inclusion room. The prosecution at Manchester Crown Court showed that Jenkinson had tried four months earlier to poison Brianna ...

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Image: Hullian111 | CC BY-SA 4.0

Brianna Ghey: Esther

Fri, 29 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Rept0n1x, CC BY-SA 3.0. Outside the courthouse after the verdict, Brianna's mother Esther Ghey asked the public to extend empathy to the families of her daughter's killers. It was not the response the cameras expected and not the one most parents would have given, and Esther kept giving it. In March 202...

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Image: Rept0n1x | CC BY-SA 3.0

Brianna Ghey: Vigils, Press, Pink Skies

Fri, 29 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit FriendlyHMM, CC BY-SA 4.0. In the days after Brianna's death, candlelight vigils gathered in cities across the United Kingdom and in Dublin. Many drew crowds in the thousands. Hundreds attended her funeral at St Elphin's in Warrington. A GoFundMe set up by her friends raised £70,000 in three days and event...

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Image: FriendlyHMM | CC BY-SA 4.0

Brianna Ghey: Culcheth Linear Park

Fri, 29 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Sleepytimecat, CC BY 4.0. Culcheth Linear Park follows the line of the old Wigan-to-Glazebrook railway, closed in 1964 and reopened in the 1970s as a foot and cycle path. It is the kind of quiet green corridor that runs through suburban Cheshire by the hundred, a place where neighbours walk dogs and child...

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Image: Sleepytimecat | CC BY 4.0