Father of Brianna Ghey murderer jailed for sex offences

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The father of the teenage boy who murdered Brianna Ghey has been jailed for 15 months for sexual offences against teenage girls.

Kyle Ratcliffe, 36, the father of Eddie Ratcliffe, who is serving life along with Scarlett Jenkinson, both aged 16, was described as a risk to girls during sentencing at sentenced at Manchester Crown Court on Wednesday.

Ratcliffe admitted two offences of exposure in November last year involving two 16-year-old girls at a bus stop. The offences were committed shortly before his son went on trial.

He also pleaded guilty to taking an indecent photo of a pre-pubescent girl by covertly recording video of her in a changing room in August last year.

Jailing him and ordering that he must be placed on the sex offenders’ register for 10 years, Judge John Potter said the prosecution and conviction of Ratcliffe‘s son for murder was not “in any way” mitigation for the offending.

Judge Potter said: “This is not the first time in your life you have harmed others in this way.

“The offences on this indictment coupled with your previous convictions make it quite clear that you have a sexual attraction towards female children and teenagers whom you objectivise for the purpose of your own sexual gratification.

“This, Mr Ratcliffe, has potential to cause very serious harm and portrays you, in my judgment, as currently presenting a significant risk to such individuals.”

The court had heard how father-of-three Ratcliffe, who had run a kick-boxing gym in Leigh, Greater Manchester, had been driving his Maserati car along a busy road at around 7.45am.

As he passed two 16-year-old girls at a bus stop waiting to go to college, he turned his head towards them and as they looked back at him they could see his hand moving and his trousers pulled down to his knees.

Michelle Brown, prosecuting, said one girl was “shocked and in disbelief” at what she had seen.

The next day, Ratcliffe again passed them on the road at the same bus stop and was seen masturbating again in his car. On this occasion, one of the girls, who cannot be identified, took a photo of his car with her mobile phone.

Both girls expressed “shock, confusion and concern” and told their parents, and police were able to trace Ratcliffe from the photo of his car.

Detectives then analysed his phone and found a video taken three months before on 22 August in 2023 at a waterpark in Cheshire.

The court heard Ratcliffe secretly recorded a “pre-pubescent” girl, aged between 12 and 15, getting changed out of a swimming costume.

Ratcliffe initially told a “pack of lies” to police, claiming the video had been sent to him and the exposure offences were down to a medical problem he had - but he later admitted the offences.

Mr Mark Friend, mitigating, said, “One knows not the motivation to behave in the way he did. The reality is, it is perhaps either difficult or unrealistic to divide this defendant from that which has befallen his family.

“So far as their life as it is now, it is but a shadow that they enjoyed prior to February 2023.

“The defendant accepts that he has played his own part in this misery and left his wife and other two children dealing with that burden alone.”

Eddie Ratcliffe and Jenkinson were jailed for life earlier this month, with minimum terms of 20 and 22 years set respectively.

In a frenzied attack that was weeks in the planning, the defendants stabbed 16-year-old Brianna 28 times with a hunting knife after luring her to Linear Park, Culcheth, a village near Warrington, Cheshire, on the afternoon of 11 February.

Jenkinson and Ratcliffe, previously identified only as girl X and boy Y, had denied murder and each attempted to blame the other for her killing.