Girl accused of murdering Brianna Ghey tells court of ‘shock’ as she ‘saw’ friend stabbing victim
A teenage girl accused of killing Brianna Ghey has told a court she was in “shock” when she saw her friend stabbing the 16-year-old, causing her to “fall face down on the floor”.
The 16-year-old defendant, known as girl X, claims she had her back to her co-accused, boy Y, who is also 16, and Brianna when she “heard a noise like someone screaming” and turned around.
“I saw boy Y stabbing Brianna,” she said.
“It looked like she was starting to fall towards the floor because she was kind of like leaning a bit.”
Girl X said she saw boy Y stab Brianna, who was transgender, “around five times”, adding: “I seen her fall and land face down on the floor.
“I saw him stand next to her leaning over, looking down on her,” telling Manchester Crown Court he “could’ve” stabbed her again while she was on the floor.
Two teenagers deny murdering Brianna. Pic: Cheshire Police
Brianna was stabbed 28 times in her head, neck, chest and back with a hunting knife after being lured to Linear Park in Culcheth, near Warrington, on 11 February, the court has heard.
Girl X and boy Y, who were both 15 at the time and cannot be identified because of their age, deny murder and are blaming each other for the killing.
Girl X became visibly upset at one point while giving evidence today, wiping away a tear when recalling the moments after Brianna’s death.
Asked by her barrister Richard Pratt KC how she felt when she saw the boy stabbing Brianna, she said: “I was in shock really when it happened.”
She added: “There was nothing really I could do because if I tried to stop him, boy Y could’ve easily overpowered me.”
She claimed she had not expected the alleged attack and had not wanted it to happen, claiming previous discussions about killing Brianna had been a “fantasy”.
“I walked over to see if I could see her breathing and I couldn’t. I saw boy Y start to run and then I panicked and started running with him,” she said.
“I kept thinking about whether I should go back or not.”
Girl X denied she had stabbed Brianna, that she wanted boy Y to stab her or that she had wanted the victim to die.
Asked how she feels about Brianna’s death, she said: “I do feel really upset about it.”
The court heard Girl X watched videos of Brianna and sent messages about the murder to friends in the hours after the stabbing.
She told her mother, and then the police, that Brianna was with her but had left to meet a boy from Manchester.
The prosecution alleges this note was a plan to kill Brianna Ghey. Pic: Cheshire Police
She told jurors: “I was scared because obviously I knew how bad it would look, just based off text messages, so I was defending myself as well as boy Y at the time.”
Girl X has admitted watching internet torture videos on the “dark web” but she denied that she “liked seeing Brianna stabbed”.
‘I just want her to die really bad’
She has previously told jurors she had “dark fantasies” of killing other children, as well as Brianna, and an interest in serial killers, but had no intention of making any of it reality.
Jurors have been shown a handwritten note of an alleged “murder plan” to kill Brianna, which was found on girl X’s bedroom floor.
“I thought if I wrote an actual note and showed it to boy Y he would think I was being serious,” she explained.
The court has seen messages in which she told boy Y: “I just want her to die really bad” and “I want to see the pure horror in her face and hear her scream in pain.”
In another she said she wanted to “keep part of its flesh and an eyeball. Really want one because they have pretty eyes.”
Asked why she was talking in that way, girl X said: “Because I knew some serial killers would do things like that,” adding that she didn’t mean to refer to Brianna as “it” and had not meant the term “in a nasty way”.
Girl X said messages in which she encouraged boy Y to bring a knife were “to add more to the fantasy” of killing Brianna and “so he would think I was serious”.
Asked if there was a possibility boy Y would think she was being serious, she said “yes” but said she did not think he would bring a knife “because I knew he never took his knives out with him”.
The trial continues.
The crash involving a cargo ship and oil tanker off the East Yorkshire coast is bad news for the sea, fish and air in the area. What we don’t know yet is quite how bad it will be.
That depends on a few things – but the speed of the collision, clouds of filthy black smoke from the fires and the leaked fuel are certainly worrying.
Firstly, it matters what was on board those two massive vessels.
Follow live: Jet fuel spilling into sea after tanker collision
Analytics firm Vortexa estimates the 183m-long tanker was carrying about 130,000 barrels of jet fuel (kerosene), which is now leaking into the sea.
Jet fuel is not as sticky or viscous as heavier types of oil, thankfully, so it’s less likely to clog the feathers and fur of birds and seals. It can also be broken down by natural bacteria.
But it can still poison fish and kill animals and plants on the shoreline if it makes its way into the soil there.
The Marine Conservation Society has pointed out the site in the Humber estuary is close to some protected areas and is important for seabirds and harbour porpoises.
And both ships will have been powered by a dirtier, heavier kind of oil – likely marine gas oil or heavy fuel oil, though we don’t know the details yet.
Heavy fuel oil is nasty stuff.
Pic: Bartek Smialek/PA
Cheap, thick and tar-like, it can smother animals and is very dangerous if they consume it, and is extremely difficult to clean up. Let’s hope this isn’t creeping around the North Sea already.
We don’t know how much of either the jet fuel or the oil powering the ships has leaked, or how much will be burned off in the violent fires – which themselves are ploughing black smoke and filthy air pollution into the surrounding atmosphere.
And we don’t know for sure what was on the Solong cargo ship and if, or what, will go into the sea.
Cargo ship ‘had sodium cyanide on board’
It was carrying 15 containers of sodium cyanide among other cargo, according to a report from maritime data provider Lloyd’s List Intelligence.
The container vessel was also transporting an unknown quantity of alcohol, said the casualty report – an assessment of incidents at sea – citing a message from the local coastguard.
Plastic takes hundreds of years to break down, and potentially can choke or trap animals.
Many of us have seen that uncomfortable viral video of a turtle having a straw yanked out of its nose. Previous accidents on cargo ships have seen plastic Lego pieces wash up in Cornwall 25 years later.
Read more:
How UK North Sea platforms dump gas
Secondly, the impact depends on the sea and weather conditions around it.
Things like the wind and currents affect how an oil spill spreads in the sea. Scientists can draw up computer models to simulate how the oil could behave.
Thirdly, it matters how quickly this is all tackled and then cleaned up, if necessary, and if it can be.
Usually the slower the response, the worse the impact.
The coastguard has said the incident “remains ongoing” and it has started assessing the “likely counter pollution response” that will be required.
Such a response might need the help of numerous public bodies: the government environment department, the transport department, the Environment Agency and the Maritime and Coastguard Agency.
So for now the best we can hope for – aside from the welfare of the people involved – is that not all the oil is spilled or burnt, that conditions are calm and that rescuers and those cleaning up can work swiftly.
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