The mother of murdered teenager Brianna Ghey is calling on Sir Keir Starmer to ban smartphones in schools, claiming it "would really have helped her daughter".
Esther Ghey is also demanding more funding for schools to introduce pouches to lock phones in during the day, which she said has been successful for her daughter's old school, Birchwood Community High School in Warrington.
Brianna was murdered in a vile premeditated attack by Scarlett Jenkinson and Eddie Ratcliffe in a Warrington park in February 2023.
Now, her mother is joining actress Kate Winslet, actor Stephen Graham, and several MPs to call for the ban.
Esther told reporters: "For me, it would have really helped Brianna. It would have helped her to focus on her school work.
"She wouldn’t have been getting in to so much trouble because all of the issues were around the phone use. She would have had a much better chance in life."
During the three years Brianna was at Birchwood, there were 120 safeguarding logs and 116 behaviour logs around her phone use, Esther said.
Esther explained: "These ranged from Brianna being at risk of child sexual exploitation, to what she was accessing online, that was encouraging her to self harm and to have an eating disorder...As a parent, I really felt like I was failing...I didn’t know what to do."
Brianna Ghey's mother has launched a major campaign for the ban
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Speaking about the services Brianna was offered, Esther told her daughter's inquest last year: "I feel like she was let down with the lack of mental health treatment."
In the system Birchwood uses, phones are locked in pouches on arrival at school, which is then carried around by the student rather than locked in another location.
Esther said: "The funding needs to be in place, because I’ve spoken to headteachers.
"They’ve said sometimes it’s a choice between a new classroom assistant or the pouches, and headteachers shouldn’t have to make that choice."
Esther is calling for the ban on smartphones (file pic)
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Asked about this, Esther said: “My thoughts on the idea currently is that under-16s shouldn’t be on social media full stop. There’s so much harmful content on there.
"And I think that’s the issue with schools, because there’s so many parents that are completely locking down phone or that are choosing to give the children brick phones so they can’t access social media, but when they go to secondary school they’re opened up to a world of harms because all the children have phones."
A ban in schools is just “one part of the puzzle” in the approach to children’s phone and social media usage, she added.
Esther Ghey said that as a child, Brianna was 'funny, mischievous, outgoing' and 'had endless energy' | GETTY
Eddie Ratcliffe and Scarlett Jenkinson were sentenced to 20 and 22 years in prison respectively
| Cheshire PoliceJenkinson and Ratcliffe, both 15 at the time, lured Brianna to Culcheth Linear Park in Warrington where the 16-year-old transgender teenager was fatally stabbed 28 times with a hunting knife in February 2023.
Jenkinson was sentenced at Manchester Crown Court in December 2023 to a minimum sentence of 22 years in prison, and Ratcliffe to a minimum term of 20 years.
The court heard how Ratcliffe's motivation was in part hostility to Brianna's transgender identity, while Jenkinson was motivated by a "deep desire to kill".
Reacting to the news of the sentencing, former Met Police senior detective Peter Bleksley told GB News: "It is so astonishing, so brutal, and so vile. My thoughts go out to everyone who knew and loved Brianna."