‘We’ve lost the ability to safeguard children on social media’, says mother of murdered teen Brianna Ghey

Sixteen-year-old Brianna Ghey was stabbed to death last February by two teenagers – Scarlett Jenkinson and Eddie Ratcliffe – in what’s been called an “exceptionally brutal” murder.

Her mother, Esther Ghey, is now campaigning to raise awareness about the dangers of social media and the “toxic” online world which her daughter came to inhabit. She wants tighter regulation on internet access and more parental controls.

We spoke to her and asked why she decided to focus on social media safety.

Listen to the full interview on the Ways to Change the World podcast.

Esther Ghey: When Brianna was with us, she was self-harming and she had an eating disorder and she struggled with anxiety and low mood as well. And I only found out after Brianna had died that she was accessing sites online that were encouraging her to do this. And I think there are so many other young people who are also accessing this kind of harmful content.

Krishnan Guru-Murthy: And doing something about it would be basically stopping under 16s, would it, from getting on social media at all?

Esther Ghey: I think firstly, we need to do some research to see what age is appropriate. When you speak to teenagers that are, say 16, 17, every teenager that I’ve spoken to has said – in hindsight – ‘we were on social media far too young’ and they would actually increase the age to 15.

Krishnan Guru-Murthy: What Brianna went through is a very common story. And most parents will understand that. But obviously, what makes you so terribly different is that you lost Brianna, to two 16-year-olds, who were also accessing the dark web for horrific material – and organising their attack using social media.

Esther Ghey: Yeah.

Krishnan Guru-Murthy: So do you think that is one of the other reasons why you’re involved in this?

Esther Ghey: Yeah, that’s one of the other reasons. I think that – I’ve been asking tech companies, is there a way to get harmful word monitoring on devices or on sims, so that we can monitor what our young people… I suppose not to monitor everything that young people are accessing, but only harmful things. So if a child is searching how to self harm or, like in the very, very worst case, how the children were organising Brianna’s death online as well. If one of those parents had seen that they were doing this online, then that would have been prevented because there would be no parent in this world that would allow their children to speak to each other like this online. But it’s such a, kind of, secret world that children…it’s almost like a smartphone has become a diary and it’s a secret world where parents can’t access it. I just think that we’ve kind of lost the ability to safeguard our children.

Krishnan Guru-Murthy: What you became so famous for so quickly was your understanding of really the mother of Scarlett Jenkinson – and your willingness to meet her – and to talk to her about the difficulties of parenting? Are you still in touch?

Esther Ghey: Yes, we’re still in touch. She’s just a normal woman. And I think that she has struggled as well, just the same as so many other parents. I think that this is why we need to all come together, government, tech companies, parents, children, to make things better.

Krishnan Guru-Murthy: What’s your message to the tech companies? I mean, have they engaged with you at all?

Esther Ghey: They haven’t engaged with me at all. I do think that they need to – they need to speak to the ‘bereaved families for online safety’ group. They need to acknowledge that harm is going on, on their platforms. And I think that just the fact that they’re not speaking to us, it just speaks volumes really. And it makes us even more suspicious about like – what’s actually going on and why do they not want to help?

Krishnan Guru-Murthy: If you had MPs in front of you, voting on this private member’s bill, what would you say to convince them that they have to take on the social media giants and do this?

Esther Ghey: It is so important that MPs vote for this – for the bill. It’s to raise the age of digital consent from 13 to 16. So many other countries are already doing this. And yeah it’s really important. At the moment, children are suffering and children are losing their lives because of what they’re accessing online. And we do need to make the online world safer. So I 100% back the bill that Josh MacAlister has brought in. And I think that the rest of parliament needs to as well.