The father of one of Brianna Ghey’s killers is a sex offender, it can be disclosed. Kyle Ratcliffe, Eddie Ratcliffe’s dad, pleaded guilty to two counts of exposure and one count of taking an indecent image of a child.
Ratcliffe, from Leigh, admitted exposing himself on two occasions, on November 22 and 23 last year, offences committed just days before his son’s murder trial began at Manchester Crown Court on November 27. The 36-year-old appeared at the same court this morning (Feb 23) to admit his guilt. He was sentenced to 15 months in prison.
His son Eddie Ratcliffe, 16, was found guilty of Brianna’s murder, alongside his co-defendant Scarlett Jenkinson, also 16, on December 20. Before the pair were handed life sentences earlier this month, police charged Kyle Ratcliffe, a manager of a truck company who also ran a kickboxing gym, with the three offences on January 17.
He was then remanded in custody. At Ratcliffe and Jenkinson’s sentencing hearing, trial judge Mrs Justice Yip imposed reporting restrictions which prohibited the media from disclosing the connection between Ratcliffe and his father’s offending, in order to avoid prejudice to his case while its outcome remained undetermined.
But they have now been lifted following his guilty pleas. His son is currently serving a minimum of 20 years in jail for the murder of Brianna, a 16-year-old transgender schoolgirl. She was stabbed 28 times in a ferocious, frenzied killing on February 11 last year in Culcheth Linear Park, near Warrington.
Brianna’s death followed weeks of planning by Ratcliffe and Jenkinson, who had become obsessed with murder and torture, fuelled by a morbid interest in serial killers. Following the killing, police discovered the murder weapon, a hunting knife which Ratcliffe had bought on a family holiday to Bulgaria weeks earlier, in his bedroom.
They also found items of his clothing soaked in Brianna’s blood. Brianna had been invited out to Culcheth that afternoon by Jenkinson, who she knew from school and considered a friend.
But she had no idea that Jenkinson had become ‘obsessed’ with her, and that she’d been secretly plotting to kill her. A chilling handwritten plan to kill Brianna was discovered in Jenkinson’s bedroom, which detailed almost exactly what was to happen on February 11.
Before the disclosure of Kyle Ratcliffe’s crimes, neighbours who lived near their home in Leigh described the family as pleasant and respectable, and said they ‘kept themselves to themselves’. Kyle Ratcliffe is the manager of a truck company, and would often be spotted tinkering with vehicles outside the family’s home on Imperial Drive, the M.E.N. previously reported.
He was also involved in kickboxing, and travelled to Jamaica in 2018 for the Amateur World Championships, where he and his son both competed. He also ran a kickboxing gym in Leigh, which he opened last year but has since closed.
