A disabled pedestrian jailed for causing the death of a cyclist in the street has been released on unconditional bail after winning the right to challenge her manslaughter conviction.

Auriol Gray is ‘excited’ to be back home and was welcomed with ‘big hugs’ from supportive neighbors and after doing a supermarket shop.

She was jailed for three years in March last year for aggressively waving at a retired midwife who then fell into the path of an oncoming car, killing her.

Polite and well-spoken, Gray confirmed to MailOnline today that she was now back home, but refused to say how she was feeling or answer questions, simply saying: ‘No comment.’

Her good friend Roman Ramsay, who bailed her out, said: “We are so happy that Auriol is back home and it is really nice to see her again. She should never have been in jail in the first place.”

He added: “She is happy to get bail.”

Another friend and neighbor Robert Reed told our website: ‘She was granted bail and left jail last night.

‘I welcomed her home and we had a quick cuddle before she went to the Aldi store to buy some stuff.

“One of our friends got her out of jail and we’re all so happy she’s back. She is in good spirits and happy to be home.”

She had spent a year behind bars at HMP Peterborough.

Gray returned to her adapted flat in a gated complex in Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire, owned and maintained by the Papworth Trust, which had been ‘sparklingly cleaned’ by her neighbours.

Mr Ramsey said Gray, now 50, was also “pleased and relieved” at the prospect of her name being cleared if her appeal was successful, and had told friends: “I’m not a murderer!”

After three judges at the Court of Appeal this week allowed her to challenge her conviction, he said: ‘Auriol was very angry about being in prison in the first place.’

The retired stonemason, 78, who regularly visited her in prison and last saw her inside on Saturday, said: ‘Her friends, family and neighbors all thought it was completely ridiculous that she had been convicted of manslaughter and given a custodial sentence.

“So did she, and she has always maintained that she is not a murderer.”

A spokesperson for the Criminal Appeal Office told MaiOnline: ‘Auriol Gray has been granted unconditional bail pending her appeal against the conviction.

‘She has been released. It is expected that the appeal will be heard in May 2024.”

Gray, who suffers from cerebral palsy and partial blindness, denied manslaughter but was found guilty after a retrial.

She lost her appeal against her sentence in May last year, but has since hired new lawyers who took her case to the Court of Appeal in London.

Mr Ramsey said: ‘She feared she would lose her flat after receiving a three-year prison sentence, but fortunately she was not deprived of that sentence.

“She has been looking forward to the thought of coming home.

‘We prepared it for her with great anticipation, it has been cleaned and it shines!

“She has many friends and neighbors here who care about her and will care for her, and we will all give her a warm welcome.

“She also has caregivers who help.”

He added: ‘She is pleased with the appeal hearing and the fact that her conviction could be overturned.

‘She just wants to get on with her life.

‘She was not present at the hearing but was allowed to watch the proceedings via video link from the Governor’s office at HMP Peterborough.’

Gray has few surviving relatives – her mother Verna Gray, 87, from Sudbury, Suffolk, is not in the ‘best of health’ and has rarely been able to visit her in prison.

She has a businessman brother-in-law who lives in Chiswick, West London.

Her father and sister are both deceased.

Gray was caught on CCTV gesturing to grandmother Celia Ward, 77, while shouting at her to ‘get off the sidewalk’ in Huntingdon in October 2020.

A spokesman for the Criminal Appeal Office said: ‘This case was heard on Tuesday and the application for leave to appeal against a conviction was granted.

“A new hearing date will be set in due course for the final outcome of the appeal.

“The court has granted the lawyer the liberty to file a bail application.”

Ben Rose, of lawyers at Hickman & Rose, who are representing Gray, said: ‘Auriol Gray is an autistic, disabled person with reduced vision.

“In a case like this, the prosecutor must prove to the jury that she intended to harm, or feared harm, to Ms. Ward.

‘We say this did not happen and will therefore ask the Court of Appeal to quash Ms Grey’s conviction when the case is heard in May.’

Mr Ramsey told how Gray had appeared ‘in good spirits’ whenever he visited her – and before he was released yesterday.

He said: ‘She has been inside for a year and is doing well considering the circumstances. She is well cared for in a special wing because of her needs, keeps her head down and does not cause any problems.

“She is a smart and very literate lady and instead of going crazy inside, she has put her mind to good use.

“She is always reading and taking quizzes, and even learning advanced math from another inmate.

‘She has a lot of knowledge and the people there are amazed at what she knows.

‘But she can’t wait to get out of prison and get on with her life.

“She feels like she has been wronged.”

The daughter of a woman wrongly accused of causing the deaths of a mother and her two young children in an arson attack says the miscarriage of justice has plunged her mother into drug addiction and deteriorated her mental health. what caused her death.

In a new BBC Sounds podcast: Wrongly Accused: The Annette Hewins Storymother-of-one Nicole Jacob discusses the family tragedy that changed the course of her and her siblings’ lives forever – after they were forced into care while their mother was wrongfully behind bars.

In October 1995, Diane Jones, 21, and her two daughters, Shauna, two, and Sarah Jane, one, died in an arson attack on Jones’ home in the crime-laden residential area of ​​Gurnos in Merthyr Tydfil in Mid Glamorgan, Wales.

Jacob’s mother Annette Hewins was arrested at the time with two other women and two years later she was convicted at Cardiff Crown Court in June 1997 of arson with intent to endanger life and jailed for 13 years.

The original trial heard that Hewins, 31 at the time of the murders, had supplied the petrol that started the fatal fire that led to the triple murder.

Annette’s niece, Donna Clarke, also received a 20-year prison sentence. She was romantically linked to Diane Jones’ boyfriend, Shaun Hibbard, who was the father of her two daughters, which investigators considered a motive for the fatal attack.

A third woman, Denise O’Sullivan, was found not guilty of the murders but convicted of perverting the course of justice – and served almost four years.

Annette, who was pregnant with her fifth child at the time, served 18 months of her sentence – spending a total of two and a half years in prison.

She was released by the Court of Appeal in 1999 after it concluded there was no evidence against her.

The four-star leaded gasoline she purchased was not the same one used to start the fire, the forensic investigation concluded.

In the new podcast, Nicole says her mother’s innocent trip to the garage the night before the murders took place led police straight to their door – and misled a jury into the first guilty verdict.

Audio footage shows her, surrounded by friends and family, addressing the press after her release at the Royal Courts of Justice and during her time in prison.

Annette urged police to “find the real killers” and was heard saying on the tapes: “They took my baby from me.” They wouldn’t do to a dog what they did to me.’

Her niece Clarke’s sentence was also later overturned after judges deemed the original sentence ‘unsafe’.

The podcast also describes in the hours before how Annette tragically died in February 2017, at the age of 51, after a long battle with heroin addiction and mental health issues, which left her with hallucinations and paranoia.

She was admitted to the Royal Glamorgan Hospital in Llantrisant and in her final moments was heard still trying to prove her innocence and saying her baby had been taken from her.

An inquest later concluded that she died of heart failure and that there were ‘areas of concern’ about her care, including the failure to carry out an ECG test.

Annette’s daughter says the conviction haunted her mother until the end of her life, and even after her death.

She remembers how a nurse in the hospital said to her after her mother’s death, “Your mother couldn’t live with herself, could she?”

Nicole talks about her difficult childhood that she was only four when her mother was arrested. She said Annette had felt judged by the wider community in Merthyr Tydfil and feared revenge attacks on her family.

Annette’s heroin addiction began in prison, she says, explaining that her mother had never used “hard drugs” before she was incarcerated.

In the first episode of the podcast, Nicole also visits her father, who now lives in a nursing home after an accident twenty years ago.

He thinks back to happier times for the family, including their wedding and the early years of marriage before their divorce, and says Annette would spoil her children “rotten.”

Describing the impact on her and her siblings’ childhoods – all of whom ended up in the care system – due to the miscarriage of justice, Nicole said: ‘that whole world came crashing down for all of us after her arrest’.

Annette’s daughter says she lived for a ‘happy ending’, saying: ‘When she died it was the ultimate blow, it really hit me that this dream I had since childhood would now not come true.

“It’s bittersweet when you think back on those years and what we had because it never really came back.”

Wrongly Accused: The Annette Hewins Story is now available on BBC Sounds

• Samantha Norris, 56, from Ringwood, Hampshire, had thousands of images of abuse
• Norris also wrote down a New Year’s resolution to have sex with a girl under the age of 10

By Stewart Carr

Published: 08:41 EDT, March 16, 2024 | Updated: 08:43 EDT, March 16, 2024

The cowardly killer of Melbourne woman Celeste Manno could do nothing but stare at the glowing blue orb at the front of the courtroom.

It was the size of three footballs and shone brightly among a sea of ​​black in its dark and gloomy surroundings.

It contained the ashes of Luay Sako’s 23-year-old victim, whom he last saw alive when he repeatedly stabbed a knife into her chest on November 16, 2020.

The 39-year-old looked like a meek bookworm, with his dark glasses and neatly groomed hair, trying hard not to look at the blue glow standing next to the mother whose daughter he had so callously slaughtered in the middle of the night.

On Thursday, Sako was convicted by SSupreme Court of Victoria Justice Jane Dixon to 36 years in prison with a non-parole period of 30 years.

Ms Manno’s devastated family cannot help but believe that Sako deserved nothing less than a life sentence without the possibility of parole.

Ms Manno’s mother, Aggie Di Mauro, could barely contain her anger, as she said outside court after Sako was taken away to begin his sentence.

On Friday, a clearly tired Ms Di Mauro told Daily Mail Australia she felt it was important that part of her daughter appeared in court when her killer learned his fate.

What Sako felt as he looked at the blue beacon at the front of courtroom four was none of her business.

‘I could not care less. I never looked at him,” Ms Di Mauro said.

The devastated mother said she had hoped her daughter would get justice and wanted to be part of it.

“Celeste was there for me because I felt she should be in a place that would serve her some form of justice.”

‘That’s why I brought her in. She wasn’t there for him. She was not there to appeal to the judge. She was there because I felt she belonged there, because this would be the day her justice would be served.”

‘Unfortunately that was not the outcome.’

Ms Di Mauro remains hopeful Victoria’s director of public prosecutions would appeal Sako’s sentence, but admitted her expectations were not high.

Members of Ms. Manno’s family plan to meet with prosecutors next week to discuss their thoughts.

“The fact that (Judge Dixon) got 36 years with a 30-year minimum — well, that’s not going to meet their test for manifestly inadequate, so I don’t feel safe about an appeal here, but I’ll do what I have to to enforce an appeal,” Ms Di Mauro said.

Sako killed Mrs. Manno just hours after learning she had a new boyfriend.

The simpleton was already furious about an intervention order that Mrs. Manno had issued against him a few months earlier.

How and what police did to protect Ms Manno in the months before she was murdered by Sako in her own bed could yet become the subject of a civil suit.

Ms Di Mauro declined to speculate on how she might continue the fight for justice for her daughter.

What was made abundantly clear in the shadows of Victoria’s Supreme Court on Thursday was that a fight was coming.

Surrounded by family members, Ms Di Mauro lashed out at former Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews, Attorney-General Jaclyn Symes and the police commissioner for paying her lip service over changes to the state’s stalking laws.

“Many promises were made, none of which were kept, all to look good… and then dishonor my daughter like this,” she said.

“These politicians are only interested in helping if they see numbers, nothing else.”

An investigation into stalking laws was sparked by Ms Manno’s death, when the Victorian Law Reform Commission report was tabled in Parliament in September 2022.

But none of the 46 recommendations from that study have been adopted.

The toll of the more than three years it took for Sako to be convicted has weighed heavily on Ms Di Mauro and her family.

Last month, Ms Di Mauro and her Sako family were finally able to appear in court by reading their statements victim impact statements.

But what they felt and what the court allowed them to say were very different.

Ms Di Mauro said she wanted to tackle Sako’s vile attempts to escape justice by taking advantage of his alleged mental health problems.

Ultimately, Judge Dixon’s acceptance of these issues resulted in Sako receiving a thirty-year non-parole period instead of life behind bars.

“I felt like I had the right to let (Judge Dixon) know how I feel about what (Sako’s attorney) would do, and it was redacted. I couldn’t do it,” Ms Di Mauro said.

Sako was assisted by forensic psychiatrist Dr. Rajan Darjee, who helped convince Judge Dixon Sako that he was suffering from a range of mental illnesses.

However, he also warned that Sako would most likely stalk and harm another woman if released from prison.

“He has a moderate to high risk of further stalking and if he does stalk again, there is a high risk of violence if he feels thwarted,” Dr. Darjee told Judge Dixon during Sako’s plea hearing in January.

Ms Di Mauro said that Dr. Darjee’s grim assessment of Sako’s prospects for rehabilitation and the continued threat to the community should have set off alarm bells for Judge Dixon.

“That report was so damning… their own psyche. How do you say that you believe this does not warrant a life sentence?’ she said.

An ex-footballer has been jailed for 30 years after heading a huge £2million international drugs and weapons gang.

Wayne McKenzie, 48, was thrown behind bars for bringing cocaine and cannabis into Britain from the Netherlands, Spain and the US.

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Together with his brother Craig McKenzie, 41, the 48-year-old managed to supply British dealers with Class A and B drugs worth more than £2 million at street value over a four-month period.

The men were shot in 2022 after police hacked the EncroChat phone network the pair had used to obtain and sell the drugs.

McKenzie, who played professional football in Scandinavia, appeared at Liverpool Crown Court on Friday charged with six offences.

A jury found him guilty and he was sentenced to three decades in prison.

BBC reported that the National Crime Agency (NCA) found that McKenzie and his brother were involved in the supply of drugs worth a total of more than £2 million between March and June 2020.

Most of the drugs the ex-footballer imported went to dealers in Liverpool and Manchester, but he also supplied to Wales and London.

He was caught when French police hacked the EncroChat platform – which is used almost exclusively by criminals – in 2020.

The force then passed on evidence to police across Europe.

McKenzie was also found to have been involved in “extensive” discussions about bringing firearms into the country.

In one conversation he boasted about smuggling a weapon hidden in chemical waste into Britain. He said the firearm went “directly to children in London”.

In another case, McKenzie was talking to a trawler who could help bring cannabis to Britain.

He also had contact with 'notorious criminals' in Spain, which allowed him to launder the profits.

When police raided McKenzie's home, they found a pile of hidden phones and a “burner” phone, a pair of expensive designer sneakers and paperwork related to a company used for money laundering.

And it wasn't the first time the 48-year-old was caught: he was imprisoned in 2015 for drug trafficking.

McKenzie had pleaded guilty in an earlier appearance to concerns over the supply of cannabis and money laundering.

On Monday, after a two-week trial, a jury found him guilty of conspiracy to import firearms, conspiracy to import cannabis, concern over the supply of cocaine and participation in an organized crime group.

Judge Andrew Menary QC said yesterday that McKenzie's offending “brought misery and poverty to local communities”.

His brother Craig, 41, was thrown behind bars for 20 years in October after being convicted of drug trafficking offences.

NCA operations manager Dean Wallbank said: “Wayne McKenzie was prolific in smuggling both drugs and firearms, selling them to gangs and laundering the profits carelessly through notorious criminals.

“Our investigation has dismantled this family crime group which has wreaked havoc on the streets of Britain. Those streets are safer with him behind bars.”

The Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) had earlier assured that it would mobilize all diplomatic channels and arrange legal assistance to bring them back.

New Delhi: In a major diplomatic victory, Qatar on Monday released eight Indian navy veterans jailed on charges of 'spying' in the Arab country. These eight Indian Navy veterans were sentenced to death in Qatar. The death penalty was earlier commuted to an extended prison sentence after diplomatic intervention by New Delhi.

Amid desperate pleas from the concerned relatives of the Navy veterans to secure their release and safe return to their homeland, the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) had assured that it would mobilize all diplomatic channels and arrange legal assistance to bring them back to bring.

Of the eight former naval officers, seven have already returned to India, the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) said in an official statement on Monday.

One of the Navy veterans who returned from Qatar says, “It would not have been possible for us to stand here without Prime Minister Modi's intervention. And it also happened due to the continuous efforts of the Indian government.”

#WATCH | Delhi: One of the Navy veterans who returned from Qatar says, “It would not have been possible for us to stand here without the intervention of Prime Minister Modi. And it also happened due to the continuous efforts of the Government of India.” pic.twitter.com/bcwEWvWIDK

— ANI (@ANI) February 12, 2024

Another Navy veteran who returned from Qatar said, “We waited almost 18 months to get back to India. We are extremely grateful to the Prime Minister. It would not have been possible without his personal intervention and his comparison with Qatar. We are grateful to the Government of India from the bottom of our hearts for all the efforts made and this day would not have been possible without those efforts.”

#WATCH | Delhi: One of the Navy veterans who returned from Qatar says, “We waited almost 18 months to be back in India. We are extremely grateful to the Prime Minister. It would not have been possible without his personal intervention and his equation with Qatar We are grateful for the… pic.twitter.com/5DiBC0yZPd

— ANI (@ANI) February 12, 2024

The Union government released an official statement welcoming the decision to release the veteran officers and said: “The Government of India welcomes the release of eight Indian nationals who worked for the Dahra Global company and were detained in Qatar . Seven of the eight have returned to India. We appreciate the decision of the Amir of the State of Qatar to facilitate the release and homecoming of these nationals.”

The eight Indian nationals had been held in custody in Qatar since October 2022 and were accused of spying on a submarine programme. The retired naval personnel were sentenced to death by a court in Qatar on charges that have not yet been officially made public.

Earlier, the Qatari court commuted the death sentences of eight ex-Indian naval officers it had arrested in the Dahra Global case last year, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a press statement. The punishment has now been reduced to prison terms.

Describing the verdict, the State Department said: “We noted today the ruling of the Qatar Court of Appeal in the Dahra Global case, which reduced the sentences.

“The MEA also said that the detailed judgment in the case is awaited and they are in close contact with the legal team in Qatar.

MEA added: “The detailed judgment is awaited. We are in close contact with the legal team and the family members to decide on the next steps. Our Ambassador to Qatar and other officials were present at the Court of Appeal today, together with the family members. We have supported them from the beginning of the case and will continue to provide all consular and legal assistance. We will also continue to discuss the matter with the Qatari authorities.”

Prime Minister Narendra Modi met Qatar's Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani on the sidelines of the COP28 summit in Dubai and discussed the bilateral partnership and the “welfare of the Indian community” living in Qatar.

The family of a girl who killed transgender teenager Brianna Ghey have described the year since the murder as ‘beyond our worst nightmares’. 

In a statement released last night, Scarlett Jenkinson’s family said that they agreed with ‘the jury’s verdict, the judge’s sentence and the decision to name the culprits and added they are ‘truly sorry’ for her horrific crimes. 

Jenkinson was named and given a life sentence along with co-conspirator Eddie Ratcliffe for the murder of the 16-year-old in a Warrington park in February 2023. Both killers were 15 at the time.

Jenkinson’s family said that their lives were in ‘turmoil, but the immediate focus is to make sure that we don’t do anything against the wishes of Brianna’s family.’

They also thanked the mother of Brianna Ghey in their statement which read: ‘We offer our sincere thanks to Esther Ghey for her incredible selflessness and empathy towards our family. 

‘Her compassion is overwhelming and we are forever grateful.

‘To all of Brianna’s family and friends, our community and everyone else that has been affected by this horror, we are truly sorry.’

It had been heard earlier that Scarlett Jenkinson wanted to keep part of Brianna Ghey’s flesh as a token and said she was ‘excited’ as she stabbed the schoolgirl to death, a court heard.

Jenkinson killed Brianna anticipating that she was going to leave her, and wanted part of her body so she would ‘always be with her’, prosecutor Deanna Heer KC said.

She also admitted an earlier incident when Brianna became ill came about in an attempt by her to poison her victim with pills.

Ms Heer said, in a further account of events to a probation officer, Jenkinson had said she and Eddie Ratcliffe deliberately lured Brianna to the park.

Ms Heer continued: ‘On this occasion she said it was she who first inflicted stab wounds then passed it to Eddie who forced the victim to the floor, stabbing her about three times, at that point she took the knife and delivered the majority of stab wounds.

Jenkinson was moved to Brianna Ghey’s school after being expelled from another comprehensive for trying to ‘poison’ a fellow pupil with cannabis sweets.

Until her arrest on February 12 for the murder of Brianna, Jenkinson seemed to be an ordinary teenage girl.

The then-15-year-old was seen by neighbours as quiet and somewhat anxious, born to ‘hard-working’ parents – a tradesman father and a mother who worked in education.

But behind the façade lay obsessions with torture and murder, dark fantasies and expert knowledge on serial killers – knowledge Jenkinson would draw on to build up her own ‘kill list’ of other children and ultimately plot Brianna’s death.

The teenager had already been expelled from ‘several’ schools by the time she joined Birchwood Community High in Warrington, Cheshire.

And today, as Jenkinson is revealed as Girl X, it can be revealed that she was most recently expelled for attempting to poison a fellow pupil with cannabis ‘gummies’ which made them ill.

Jenkinson persuaded the girl to take two of the sweets, which unknown to her were laced with marijuana, in Culcheth High School’s library – but the pupil became seriously unwell and needed hospital treatment after the attack in October 2022.

The teenager was excluded, and moved to nearby Birchwood High School, where she met Brianna in the ‘inclusion unit,’ where vulnerable and troubled pupils are taught away from mainstream lessons.

Brianna was in the unit because of her struggles with anxiety and Jenkinson because of her expulsion.

‘When [Jenkinson] was arrested I just thought it had to be a mistake. She was never any trouble. I never so much as saw her drop a piece of litter,’ one neighbour said. 

But the Mail understands Warrington Borough Council have launched an independent child safeguarding review following Brianna’s murder, which will examine Jenkinson’s interaction with key agencies, including the police, social services and schools.

It has been claimed Brianna’s school were unaware of the extent of Jenkinson’s behaviour, including the fact that a child did not know what they were taking, that she became unwell and that the police were called.

Headteacher Emma Mills said: ‘If anything came up where we thought that it would be a danger in any way, then you can simply refuse. In Scarlett’s case there was nothing that raised a concern in terms of the information that we were given.’

The father of a pupil at Culcheth High said his daughter was lucky to be alive after she refused to take the drug sweets from Jenkinson.

He said: ‘There was a massive incident at the high school and Scarlett Jenkinson got expelled.

‘Listening to the murder trial has been absolutely horrific. When she tried to poison my daughter I thought I was overreacting thinking it was attempted murder – you never think a child of 15 would want to do that to another kid.

‘She tried to give two (cannabis gummies) to my daughter, but she didn’t take them (and) one of the other girls in the library did. She ended up in A&E.’

Another former pupil said Jenkinson would turn up to lessons with red eyes, high on ‘substances and stuff’ and ‘smelling of weed.’ 

During the trial the jury were told that Jenkinson lured Brianna to the park on the pretence that they would take cocaine together.

The father described Jenkinson as ‘manipulative’ and also claimed she was known for bullying other children. She also played truant so she could stay at home and watch horror films, he said.

‘Every parent of every kid in this village feels like their children have had a lucky escape,’ the father said.

‘She was a bully and a manipulator. She would never get her hands dirty, she’d always get someone else to do it. When we heard it was Scarlett and Eddie (who had been arrested) we immediately thought it would be Scarlett telling him to stab her.

‘It’s been horrible, every parents’ nightmare. I’m just so thankful that my daughter is still here because it could have been her, she could have been one of the kids on their kill list. I feel so bad for Brianna’s family but I’m so grateful that my daughter is ok.’

Jenkinson did not have close friends at school, where she told fellow pupils she was involved in satanism and believed she was a witch, a source said.

But although she had problems in education, she had never come to the attention of police and continued to appear to live as an ordinary teenager in a respectable family.

Yet while the local community remained unaware of Jenkinson’s proclivities towards violence, her classmates were far from oblivious – although no-one took her claims seriously.

One father of a child at the school said: ‘It was common knowledge from 2020 that she had a ‘kill list’ of kids she wanted to kill.

‘My daughter came home and told me about it, but no one took it seriously. Girl X tried to recruit other children to take part in blood rituals with her, everyone just thought she was weird and a fantasist.

‘You won’t find a single student that liked her.’

During her testimony, in which she blamed Eddie Ratcliffe, previously known as Boy Y, for Brianna’s murder, Jenkinson said she suffers from anxiety and had used self-harm as a ‘coping mechanism’ from the age of 12.

She had a long-standing interest in violence, telling Ratcliffe her favourite film was Sweeney Todd which she had watched ‘9000 times’.

The 15-year-old also claimed to have killed two people before – but there is no evidence to suggest this is true. 

Jenkinson even watched the movie the night before killing Brianna, telling Ratcliffe: ‘He kills people with one of the sharpest blades in the world.’

She reported beginning to fantasize about killing people from the age of 14, at which point she became interested in ‘dark materials’, including films of murder, torture and serial killers found on the dark web via an app she had downloaded.

In December, she sent an advert to Ratcliffe for an underground site for people who like rape, torture and murder. ‘I love watching torture vids,’ she told him. ‘Real ones on the dark web.’

Jenkinson was infatuated with serial killers such as ‘Milwaukee Monster’ Jeffrey Dahmer, the cannibal and necrophiliac who killed and dismembered 17 men between 1978 and 1991, ‘Night Stalker’ Richard Ramirez, whose 13 victims included a nine-year-old girl and a 79-year-old woman, and ‘Dr Death’ Harold Shipman, the English GP suspected of killing around 250 people.

Speaking to Ratcliffe about Ramirez, she told him: ‘I could talk about him for like two hours, including quotes and dates of stuff.’

Pages from Jenkinson’s notebook released by police on Friday show she made detailed notes about various killers, including quotes, how many they killed and the methods they used to mutilate their victims.

Experts told the Mail how Jenkinson’s perusal of online content such as this would have ‘desensitised’ her to to horrific violence she was viewing.

Professor Alan Woodward, a computer science and cyber security specialist from Surrey University, said: ‘The internet leads to a lot of criminal activity because it’s seen as fantasy. Users are not only desensitised but they are goaded into doing it themselves. 

‘They see other people doing it or they might do something softer or something illegal online and no one comes knocking at their door, so they carry out a frenzied attack and they don’t think of the consequences because they are still living in that online virtual world.’

He told The Trial podcast it was impossible to ‘stumble’ upon these sites and instead Jenkinson would have been ‘pushed’ towards them by the algorithms of social media after expressing an interest online. 

She had downloaded an ‘onion browser’ six months before Brianna’s murder which allowed her to access and watch videos of people being murdered and tortured, sometimes via live streams, on the dark web without being traced. 

She and Ratcliffe had been discussing killing someone for months and Jenkinson had drawn up a list of potential targets with at least five children’s names on, including Brianna’s. 

In October 2022, they talked about killing Boy M, who cannot be named for legal reasons. In messages shown to the court Jenkinson asked: ‘Can I keep some things, a couple of teeth and an eye?’

However Jenkinson soon moved on to Brianna after becoming ‘obsessed’ over her. 

On January 23, she claimed to have tried to kill Brianna by poisoning her with painkillers: ‘You know that girl I mentioned, Brianna, I’m still tryna [sic] kill her and the easiest way is pill overdose… 

‘Ppl [people] already know she is depressed and sh*t so nobody would get sus [suspicious] but for some reason she has a high tolerance like I gave her some today that should have been enough to kill her…’

Jenkinson then set about devising a meticulous plan for how to kill Brianna, enlisting Ratcliffe’s help and, crucially, his hunting knife.

A handwritten note found by police in her bedroom following her arrest read: ‘Meet [Eddie] at wooden posts 1pm. Walk down to library, bus stop. Wait until Brianna gets off bus, then the three of us walk to Linear Park. Go to the pipe/tunnel area. 

‘I say code word to [Eddie]. He stabs her in the back as I stab her in stomach. [Boy Y] drags the body into the area. We both cover up the area with logs etc.’

The judge concluded that while Jenkinson was motivated by her ‘deep desire’ to kill, Ratcliffe was ‘motivated in part by hostility towards Brianna because she was transgender’. He used ‘dehumanising’ language, repeatedly referring to her as ‘it’ and speculating about whether she would scream ‘like a man or a girl’. In one message, he told Jenkinson he wanted to kill Brianna because he ‘wanted to know what size d*** it had’.

Mrs Justice Yip said that because each killer was aware of the other’s motivations, she considered them both to be partly driven by transphobia.

Cheshire Police previously rejected calls to investigate Brianna’s murder as a hate crime against her due to her transgender identity. The force declined to comment on the matter when contacted after sentencing had been completed.

Speaking outside Manchester Crown court following the sentencing, Senior Crown Prosecutor Nicola Wyn Williams said Brianna’s killing is considered a hate crime.

She said the CPS applied to the judge for an increase in the killers’ sentences as it believed the ‘killing was a hate crime, motivated in part by hostility towards Brianna because she was transgender’.

‘We are pleased that the court has agreed that this was a motive,’ she added.

David Wilson, professor of criminology at Birmingham City University and a former prison governor who ran specialised units for some of Britain’s most notorious serial killers, believes that plotting the murder through graphic messages on Snapchat and WhatsApp helped accelerate their plan to kill Brianna Ghey, who was murdered within weeks of the pair identifying her as a victim.

‘Brianna’s murder went from an imagined fantasy to reality within what seems like a breath,’ says Professor Wilson.

He adds that the relationship between Jenkinson and Ratcliffe was a classic folie à deux, which literally means a shared madness or delusion that is typically found in couples who kill.

Less typical is the fact that Jenkinson and Ratcliffe were not boyfriend and girlfriend, and unlike other notorious British killer couples, such as Moors Murderers Ian Brady and Myra Hindley and Rose and Fred West, the female — Jenkinson — was the ‘dominant’ one in the partnership.

‘Within every folie à deux there is always a dominant, someone who is in charge, and a subservient,’ Prof Wilson said.

‘In this case, it is Jenkinson that seemed to be the one in charge. And that is interesting because having the woman being the more dominant within the folie à deux is not particularly common.

‘I think Jenkinson’s confession that she also stabbed Brianna – which she had initially denied, placing all the blame on Ratcliffe – is very significant because I think through that confession what we are beginning to see is the actual workings of the power relationship between the two and how unusually it’s her, the woman, who’s in charge of this particular folie a deux.’

By Connie Rusk for Mailonline

Published: 3:07 PM EST, January 31, 2024 | Updated: 7:46 PM EST, January 31, 2024