Brianna Ghey’s mother Esther has opened up about her relationship with her daughter shortly before her tragic murder in 2023 ahead of ITV’s upcoming documentary

The horrific murder of 16-year-old Brianna Ghey in Warrington shocked the nation two years ago, when two sadistic teenagers killed the transgender student in a hate-fuelled attack. Now, Brianna’s mother Esther is keeping her daughter’s memory alive with an ITV documentary that tells her story – and campaigns for the importance of mindfulness and online safety in schools.

“Mine and Brianna’s relationship was really quite strained towards the end because I was trying to look after her, I was trying to make sure that she was okay,” Esther said at a screening for Brianna Ghey: A Mother’s Story. “The more I tried to protect her, the more she pushed me away so I hope that bringing mindfulness into families might improve relationships and no parent will be in the same situation as I was with Brianna.”

Brianna was tragically murdered in February 2023 after she was targeted and stabbed by then 15-year-olds Scarlett Jenkinson and Eddie Ratcliffe. Jenkinson, who had befriended Brianna at school, lured her to Culcheth Linear Park on the pretense of meeting a drug dealer before attacking her with Ratcliffe.

Jenkinson and Ratcliffe were sentenced to life in prison with a minimum sentence of 20 years for the killing, which was motivated by Ratcliffe’s transphobia and Jenkinson’s obsession with torture and murder.

ITV’s upcoming special sees Esther alongside Brianna’s family and friends speak about the student’s childhood, the struggles she faced at school as a transgender teenager and the events leading up to her tragic death.

“When you lose a child in a tragic circumstance which is so high profile, your child essentially becomes public property,” Esther said.

“Anybody can make any film that they want to, and it was really important for me to work with somebody who I trusted and to make sure that the documentary was as authentic and showed Brianna for who she was.”

She added that filming the documentary could be “traumatising” at times. “Whenever I speak about Brianna, it’s difficult. And obviously reliving things over and over again is never easy,” she said.

“But it’s important to still be able to have that voice to talk about the issues that were around Brianna. Every time I speak about Brianna, it is difficult because it just reminds me of what I’ve lost.”

For Esther, it was essential that the documentary capture Brianna’s “fun-loving, carefree” side as well as the darker moments in her life, which saw her face mental health struggles.

“Anybody who knew Brianna knows that she’s forgettable, she was absolutely one of a kind,” she said, holding back tears. “Hopefully through work with this documentary, her memory will be there forever.”

Esther added that she has received messages of support from people who are reminded of Brianna, who loved the colour pink. “I have people that message me on social media saying that whenever they see a pink sky, they’re reminded of Brianna. And that for me means that Brianna’s memory is being kept alive.”

In the documentary, Esther speaks to Meta whistleblower Arturo Bejar – a former senior staff member who says that Instagram is not doing enough to protect teens from online harassment and dangerous content.

With Brianna’s killer Jenkinson having accessed videos of murder and torture on the dark web prior to her murder, Esther is calling for better protections for young people online.

“I’m at a point now where I would honestly say ban under 16s from social media,” she said. “It is an absolute cesspit. No matter how much love and compassion you pump into your children when you’re bringing them up, they will go online and see the way that other people are speaking about other people.

“That’s without even going into the amount of harm that’s online – like the dangerous challenges where young poeple are losing their lives, misogyny, hate, misinformation. That is just the trip of the iceberg.”

Brianna Ghey: A Mother’s Story airs Thursday at 9pm on ITV1. Stream the extended version on ITVX.

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