Brianna Ghey news - live: Scarlett Jenkinson’s family breaks silence as teen jailed with Eddie Ratcliffe

The teenage girl convicted of murdering Brianna Ghey has been found with another so-called ‘kill list’ while being held in a secure unit awaiting her sentencing.

Scarlett Jenkinson and Eddie Ratcliffe wrote a ‘kill-list’ of five child victims with Brianna their first target.

Deanna Heer KC, prosecuting, told Manchester Crown Court Jenkinson has been found with a second ‘kill-list’ while being held in custody, which included the names of those caring for her.

After Scarlett Jenkinson admitted today for the first time stabbing Brianna Ghey herself, her defence lawyer has now backtracked and argued her accomplice Eddie Ratcliffe was responsible for knifing the 16-year-old.

When Richard Pratt KC, defending, acknowledged the multiple competing accounts given by Jenkinson, Judge Mrs Justice Yip said: “There is so much evidence of untruths in the case of Scarlett that quite frankly it’s impossible to believe anything she says - I put it as bluntly as that.

Consequently, when it comes to a sentencing decision, the judge said: “I’m going to have to make my findings based on the evidence given at trial.”

The prosecutor said Dr Richard Church, a consultant forensic psychiatrist, had examined Jenkinson and concluded she did not have a mental illness but presents with a severe “conduct dissocial disorder with limited pro-social emotions”.

Deanna Heer KC concluded: “In Scarlett’s case, she knew what she was doing was wrong and she knew it was very wrong.”

In Ratcliffe’s case, Dr Michael Crawford, another consultant forensic psychiatrist, concluded he has a mild form of autism and selective mutism.

The Prime Minister’s official spokesman said: “First and foremost, the Prime Minister’s thoughts are with Brianna’s family, friends and loved ones.

“Obviously the hurt that they feel is unimaginable and the Prime Minister shares in the country’s horror at this despicable and cowardly murder.”

The spokesman praised the “courage and dignity” of the teenager’s mother.

Asked about the decision to name her killers, he said: “It’s obviously an independent judicial decision. As the judge has said herself, this is clearly a shocking and exceptional case.”

The daughter of a high school teacher, Jenkinson had been asked to leave Culcheth High School, where her accomplice Eddie Ratcliffe was a pupil. Sources said that Jenkinson had been involved in pupils taking cannabis-laced gummy sweets.

Outwardly described by detectives as appearing to be “a normal kid from a normal family”, Jenkinson kept secret notes on her dark fantasies of death, torture, murder and serial killers in notebooks in her bedroom at the family home she shared with her parents, both teachers, and three older brothers.

Detectives say her “thirst for killing” grew over time, shared with Ratcliffe, neither blindly leading the other, both hand in hand down a path getting more extreme and more real, in a “cocoon world they alone inhabited”, their trial heard.

Unsuspecting Brianna entered this world when Jenkinson, by then 15, transferred to her school, Birchwood High, in November 2022.

After striking up a conversation about eyeliner the two became friends, hanging out in the school inclusion unit and outside class on WhatsApp and Instagram.

Jenkinson and Ratcliffe drew up a “kill list” of five people they deemed worthy of murder over insignificant or minor dislikes.

But Brianna represented an easy kill.

Richard Pratt KC, defending Scarlett Jenkinson, said he acknowledged there appeared to be a substantial element of pre-meditation in the murder of Brianna Ghey.

He added: “At the same time, there were some extraordinary and almost, if I can use the phrase, childlike mistakes from this would-be serial killer.”

He said she left notes in her bedroom and made limited attempts to conceal evidence.

Mr Pratt said Jenkinson had been diagnosed with an eating disorder and a dissocial disorder.

Richard Littler KC, in mitigation for Ratcliffe, denied his “disparaging” language about Brianna meant the murder was motivated by transphobia.

He said: “The fact that Brianna was trans is immaterial. This is nothing to do with gender at all. Finding a few offensive comments made by an autistic adolescent does not satisfy the court to a criminal standard, of effectively a hate-crime, motivation. They were juvenile and immature.”

Mr Littler citing the psychiatric report on Jenkinson, said the “box is well and truly ticked” for her on whether the crime had an element of sadism.

Mr Littler cited what Jenkinson had told the psychiatrist about the stabbing.

He said: “It made her feel excited and that excitement made her stab more times. She liked having complete power over someone and enjoyed the power she had over someone weaker like Brianna.

“She was thrilled by thoughts of violence, she was sometimes sexually aroused by it. She had increasing interest in violence, torture, murder, weapons, serial killers, fuelled and re-enforce by documentaries and dark web materials on these subjects.”

The court has adjourned now until 2.15pm, when Justice Yip will sentence the defendants.