Brianna Ghey’s murderer was sent to the same secure unit as the killer behind James Bulger’s brutal murder.
Eddie Ratcliffe, who murdered 16-year-old transgender schoolgirl Brianna alongside his female accomplice Scarlett Jenkinson, was placed in Barton Moss young offenders institution following his arrest last year.
More than three decades ago killer Robert Thompson – who was just 10 when he murdered two-year-old James, was sent to the same unit.
Thompson’s accomplice, 10-year-old Jon Venables, was locked up in the secure Vardy House wing of Red Bank, Newton-le-Willows.
The boys abducted the toddler from a shopping centre before taking him near a train track to brutally torture and kill him – making them the youngest killers in modern English history.
Once they were found guilty at Preston court court they were ordered to be detained at Her Majesty’s pleasure in the same units, according to The Mirror.
It is anticipated Ratcliffe, 16, will stay at Barton Moss in the short term but may be transferred to Wetherby after he was sentenced to a minimum of 20 years at Manchester crown court this week.
Ratcliffe’s teenage accomplice Jenkinson, who was obsessed with serial killers and horror films, is currently held in Adel Beck, a modern secure children’s home in Leeds.
She was given a minimum term of 22 years before parole by trial judge Mrs Justice Yip.
Ratcliffe was found guilty of murder alongside Jenkinson after they lured transgender teen Brianna to Linear Park, Culcheth, where she was stabbed 28 times to the head, neck, chest and back.
As jurors heard the grim details of Brianna’s ‘frenzied’ stabbing, the accused sat in the dock doing puzzles in a Sudoku magazine on his knee.
Like Jenkinson, Ratcliffe claimed his back was turned when his accomplice began impaling Brianna to death with a hunting knife – although both were found to have planned the killing for weeks.
Photos of Ratcliffe show an innocent-looking child enjoying a seemingly ordinary upbringing, complete with pets and days out in the countryside.
But what lay beneath the surface was a child ‘genius’ who has taught himself A Level Biology, Chemistry, Physics, Maths and English Literature within the confines of a secure unit.
One source said of the teen: ‘He was a top set student with a small group of friends. He always got good grades, all his school reports were good. His parents described him as a shy, quiet boy who loved animals.’
A former teacher added: ‘I couldn’t believe it when I found out he had been arrested for Brianna’s murder. He’s the last boy in the world I could ever imagine doing something like that.’
The pair, who were 15 at the time of the killing, had a fascination with violence, torture and murder and allegedly planned the murder for weeks – both ‘in it together from first to last’.
In police interviews played to the jury in December, twisted Ratcliffe tried to claim he was just ‘playing along’ with a ‘fantasy’ dreamt up by Jenkinson who boasted about already having killed people, a court heard.
Ratcliffe, who brought the hunting knife to the scene himself, said he thought Jenkinson was ‘joking’ in a message about killing Brianna.
He said online chats about people she had supposedly killed before was his way of ‘playing along with that fantasy’, saying he wrote things ‘I don’t actually believe’ in order to ‘fit in’.
‘She likes to make up lots of stories and things,’ he said.
Questioned about a comment to Jenkinson that he was going to ‘research Chinese torture’, Ratcliffe answered that he liked to know ‘how they used to punish people’ from studying history.
In a police interview two days after Brianna’s death, Ratcliffe was asked: ‘At what point would it have stopped being a joke?’
He replied: ‘If I’d seen that she was carrying a knife I would have questioned it.’
The officer said: ‘You’re talking about taking a hunting knife out with you.’
Ratcliffe replied: ‘I’m not good at judging what jokes are. I think I go too far with jokes.’
The officer asked: ‘Do you think this joke has possibly gone too far?’
Ratcliffe replied: ‘Yeah. I see it now. But then I didn’t notice it.’
Ratcliffe and Jenkinson, brought up in hard-working, loving families, lured Brianna to a meeting in a village park under the guise of friendship, only to then stab her to death.
Following his arrest, Ratcliffe was found to be autistic and to have gradually stopped speaking to anyone but his mother. This ‘selective mutism’, the jury was told, was beyond his control.
At one stage his lawyers claimed that his silence might have in part been caused by the shock of seeing Brianna being killed.
It meant that when he entered his plea, he was allowed to point to a card saying ‘Not Guilty’, rather than speak the words.
William Turner is a seasoned U.K. correspondent with a deep understanding of domestic affairs. With a passion for British politics and culture, he provides insightful analysis and comprehensive coverage of events within the United Kingdom.
