Brianna Ghey’s father admits: I struggled to form a relationship with my ‘beautiful daughter’

Peter Spooner reveals during sentencing that most of his memories are of his son, whose decision to transition was ‘brave and confident’

Brianna Ghey’s father described how he had struggled to form a relationship with his transgender daughter before she was murdered by two teenagers she thought were her friends.
Speaking at the sentencing of Scarlett Jenkinson and Eddie Ratcliffe, who on Friday were named when an anonymity order was lifted, the victim’s father said being the parent of a transgender child was “difficult”.
Peter Spooner said: “Without people accusing me of dead naming my child, most of my memories are with my son Brett.
“Our memories are engraved on my heart. He was funny, cheeky and would pull faces to make me laugh. He was my baby, my only son and his decision to transition was such a brave and confident thing to do.
“Even though I grieved the son I lost, I was proud to gain another beautiful daughter.
“Her appearance changed as she blossomed into a lovely young girl, her eyes were the same, she had my eyes when I looked at her. We were forming a new relationship and these two murderers have stolen that from us.”
Mr Spooner continued: “Now my world has been torn apart; justice may have been done with the guilty verdicts, but no amount of time spent in prison will be enough for these monsters.
“I cannot call them children as that makes them sound naive or vulnerable which they are not, they are pure evil, Brianna was the vulnerable one.
“They were determined to kill and never gave up until they had blood on their hands, my Brianna’s blood.”
The 16-year-olds – identified throughout the trial as Girl X and Boy Y – spent weeks plotting the attack on Brianna, 16, who was anxious and rarely went out alone.
After posing as her friends and arranging to meet at Linear Park in Culcheth, the then 15-year-olds stabbed her 28 times.
Following their arrest, the pair sought to deny responsibility and blame one another for the murder.
The teenagers had automatic anonymity throughout the legal proceedings because of their age, preventing them from being publicly identified.
However, following an application by the press that was supported by Brianna’s family, Mrs Justice Yip, the trial judge, said the anonymity order would be lifted when the teenage killers were sentenced for the murder.
In a Sky news interview aired on the day of the sentencing, Mr Spooner said: “At first I thought, yeah, they should be named, why should they be protected? People should know who they are.
“And now I think now when they will be named, their names always going to be connected, you know, tied with Brianna all the time.
“I just think they shouldn’t be named –,” he said before breaking off, adding: “I think they should just be forgotten about, locked up and not even spoken about again because they’re nothing.”
“I just don’t know how there were no signs of – especially for me the girl, she was disturbing even more than the other one,” he told Sky News.
“Some of the stuff she was saying in the messages, the websites she was going on, it’s just shocking. A 15-year-old, 16-year-old is like that and it’s scary.
“But how there were no red flags with her, I just don’t understand.”
Of his teenage daughter’s killers, he said: “There’s only anger towards them, if I’m honest I hate them.
“They’re just evil, for what they’ve done and I don’t think they’ll ever change. I think they’ll always be monsters and that’s what they are to me. That’s my feelings with them, they’re just a pair of monsters.”
Brianna’s mother, Esther Ghey, told Manchester Crown Court she felt her daughter’s killers, who were both obsessed with murder and torture, still pose a danger to society.
In a victim impact statement read by a prosecution barrister, as she was too upset to read it herself, Ms Ghey said: “I don’t believe that someone who is so disturbed and obsessed with murder and torture would ever be able to be rehabilitated.
“I have moments where I feel sorry for them because they have also ruined their own lives, but I have to remember that they felt no empathy for Brianna when they left her bleeding to death after their premeditated and vicious attack, which was carried out not because Brianna had done anything wrong, but just because one hated trans people and the other thought it would be fun.”
She added that the fact she thought one of them was her daughter’s friend was the “hardest thing” to come to terms with.
She told the court she had been “pleased” when Brianna sent a text message before the attack to say she was going to meet a friend.
She added: “I thought that she would have a wonderful time, hanging around with her friend and getting some fresh air.
“When all that time she was being lured to her death.
“All I can think about is that she would have been scared and I wasn’t there for her.
“She needed me to protect her, Brianna wasn’t a fighter and she must have been so terrified.”
In his statement, Brianna’s stepfather Wesley Powell said: “Brianna had a large online following but in reality she was lonely, vulnerable and in need of a close friend.
“Both Eddie and Scarlett knew this and preyed upon her vulnerabilities, acting as two predators stalking their prey.”
After the victim statements were read to the court, Mrs Justice Yip said: “They were very moving statements. I can feel the emotion in the courtroom.”