The inquest into the death of Brianna Ghey has heard that Birchwood High School, where Brianna later met her killer, was not told the full details of a previous incident involving Scarlett Jenkinson and cannabis sweets.
Brianna, 16, was lured to Culcheth Linear Park in Warrington in February 2023 and murdered by Jenkinson and Eddie Ratcliffe, who were both 15 at the time. They stabbed her multiple times and left her to die. There is no dressing that up, no softening it, and no village gossip spin that makes it any less horrifying.
Cheshire Coroner’s Court in Warrington heard that Jenkinson had moved from Culcheth High School to Birchwood High School through what is known as a managed transfer. The inquest is examining whether that transfer placed Brianna at risk.
Back in September 2022, while at Culcheth High School, Jenkinson gave another student a sweet containing cannabis. That student became ill and was taken to hospital. Culcheth High School informed Cheshire Police, though the girl and her family did not press charges.
Now here is the bit that will make plenty of local parents sit up a little straighter over their brew: the inquest heard that the full details of that incident were not shared with Birchwood High School when the transfer was discussed.
A joint statement of facts from the two schools and Warrington Council Children’s Services said Christopher Hunt, head teacher of Culcheth High School, described a one-off incident involving a child bringing an illegal substance into school, eating some of it and supplying it to other students.
But Birchwood High School was not told at that meeting that police had been contacted, or that another student had been taken to hospital. According to the statement, this was because the meeting was public and it was considered appropriate to share only essential details.
That explanation may be procedural, but it is hardly comforting. When a child has been hospitalised after being given a drug-laced sweet, most parents would probably consider that fairly essential, not some awkward footnote to be filed under 'best not mention it in front of everyone'.
The inquest also heard that Culcheth High School records described the incident as involving "spiking", but those documents were not sent to Birchwood High School.
The joint statement said: "Neither of the schools could possibly have foreseen nor did they foresee that Jenkinson posed any threat to Brianna or any other child".
It also said Birchwood High School acknowledged that, even if it had received all the available details, it likely still would have offered Jenkinson a transfer, but may have put a different support package around her.
That is the painful grey area here. No one is saying a cannabis sweet incident automatically predicts murder. But information matters, especially when schools are making decisions about vulnerable pupils, safeguarding, supervision and support. If records exist and do not travel with the child, the system starts looking less like a safety net and more like a colander.
During the murder trial, the jury heard Jenkinson had become obsessed with Brianna, who was transgender, and had been viewing material about torture and murder on the dark web. Jenkinson and Ratcliffe were found guilty of murder at Manchester Crown Court.
In February, both were detained for life. Jenkinson was given a minimum term of 22 years, while Ratcliffe was given a minimum term of 20 years. The judge described the attack as "brutal and sadistic".
For those of us in and around Culcheth, this case still sits heavily. Culcheth Linear Park is not an abstract location on a court document, it is a place people know, walk through, pass by and associate with ordinary village life. What happened to Brianna shattered that sense of ordinary.
The inquest continues, and rightly so. Not because hindsight can undo anything, but because every uncomfortable gap in communication deserves proper scrutiny. Brianna’s family, and the wider community, deserve more than vague processes and carefully worded institutional shrugs.