Girl accused of murdering Brianna Ghey ‘saw’ friend stabbing victim after 'hearing scream', court hears
11 December 2023, 17:07
A teenage girl accused of killing Brianna Ghey has told court she saw co-accused, boy Y, stabbing the 16-year-old.
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A girl, identified only as X, and co-defendant Y, a boy, both aged 16, are both accused of planning and carrying out the murder of the 16-year-old schoolgirl, who was found stabbed 28 times in Linear Park Culcheth, near Warrington.
The defendants, who were both aged 15 at the time and cannot be named because of their age, deny murder and blame each other for the killing.
Girl X has told the court that she turned her back on boy Y and had started to walk away when she “heard a noise like someone screaming” and when she turned back around, she saw Y stabbing Brianna.
“I saw boy Y stabbing Brianna,” X told Manchester Crown Court.
Girl X said boy Y stabbed Brianna “around five times”.
"It looked like she was starting to fall towards the floor because she was kind of like leaning a bit.
“I saw her fall and land face down on the floor. I saw him stood next to her, leaning over, looking down at her."
Richard Pratt KC, defending girl X, asked: "How did this make you feel?"
Girl X said: "I was in shock."
“There was nothing really I could do because if I tried to stop him, boy Y could've easily overpowered me."
She said previous discussions about killing Brianna had been a “fantasy” but she had never wanted it to happen.
"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.
X denied stabbing Brianna, that she wanted Brianna to die or that she wanted Y to be the one to stab her.
Asked how she feels about the death of the schoolgirl, she said: “I do feel really upset about it."
Read more: Heartbreaking moment Brianna Ghey left home for last time as texts 'show teenagers plot murder'
X sent messages about Brianna’s murder to friends in the hours following the stabbing, the court heard.
She told her mother and police that Brianna had been with her but left to meet a boy from Manchester.
Asked why she did not tell the truth, girl X said: "I was scared because obviously I knew how bad it would look, just based off of text messages, so I was defending myself as well as boy Y at the time."
Jurors were shown a handwritten note found on X’s bedroom floor of an alleged “murder plan” to kill Brianna.
"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 was also shown messages in which X told 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 message, X said she wanted to “keep part of its flesh and an eyeball. Really want one because they have pretty eyes”.
Asked to justify why she had spoken of Brianna in that way, X said: “Because I knew some serial killers would do things like that”.
She added that she did not mean to refer to Brianna as “it”.
X previously admitted to watching internet torture videos on the “dark web” but denied that she “liked seeing Brianna stabbed”.
She also told jurors how she had “dark fantasies” of killing children and an interest in serial killers - but had no intention of making it a reality.
The trial continues.
