A boy denied to police carrying out a “frenzied” attack in which transgender teenager Brianna Ghey was stabbed 28 times with a hunting knife.
Brianna, 16, suffered unsurvivable injuries to her head, neck, chest, back and sides in the “sustained and violent assault” after being lured to Linear Park, Culcheth, near Warrington.
Two youths, identified only as boy Y and girl X, who cannot be named because of their ages, both deny murder and are blaming each other for the killing.
Jurors at Manchester Crown Court on day eight of the trial were shown boy Y’s video-recorded police interview, and were warned before being shown a photo of Brianna’s body, where she was found by dog walkers on the afternoon of February 11.
During the police interview, accompanied by an appropriate adult and his solicitor, boy Y, who is autistic, is seen hugging a football, which helps calm him, as he is questioned by detectives.
He is accused of planning and conspiring with girl X to kill Brianna for a number of weeks before her death, after police found messages on the phones of both defendants.
Boy Y replied: “Girl X asks me about ways to kill. I just thought she was messing about. I was trying to go along with what girl X wants.”
He was also asked, if discussing killing Brianna was just a fantasy or a joke, as he claimed, then why did he discuss bringing a knife when they met Brianna and agreeing with girl X, code words for when to ready the knife and when to strike.
Boy Y replied, “She had been acting like that, talking about murders, for ages. She mentioned about being a satanist. So I just assumed that she wants to talk to me about planning murders because she sees me as a smart person.”
The detective then asks: “This is really important Y. If you are not the person that has stabbed this person – why would you need to bring a knife?”
Boy Y said he never brought a knife with him when Brianna was stabbed.
The jury has heard a hunting knife, with Brianna’s blood on it and boy Y’s DNA on the handle, was found in his bedroom at his home.
Boy Y claims he and girl X met Brianna and went to the wooded park, but when he went to relieve himself behind a tree he then saw girl X stabbing Brianna three times.
Boy Y is told Brianna was stabbed “across her entire body” in what the pathologist described as a “frenzied” attack.
He told police: “I never tried to murder anyone. It goes against everything I already know and believe, everything. It stops anything I want to do in the future. I just never tried to do anything like what’s happened.”
Detectives then begin to question boy Y about the hunting knife police had seized from his bedroom.
His solicitor asks for a break and when the interview resumes boy Y replies, “no comment” to all further questions, occasionally looking to his left at his solicitor and right at the appropriate adult sitting beside him and hugging the football on his lap.
Deanna Heer KC, prosecuting, then told the jury it was going to be necessary to show an image of Brianna at the scene, but to preserve her dignity and out of sensitivity to her it would only show what is necessary for the jury to see.
Ms Heer added: “I’m going to describe it before showing it, so you are not shocked by what you see.”
The image showed Brianna, her head closest to the camera, legs furthest away, lying on her side, facing away from the camera. Her face is not visible as her head is covered by the hood of her white jacket which has a large, red blood stain on the back.
The hearing was then adjourned briefly for a short break.
Earlier the jury heard X and Y, aged 15 at the time of Brianna’s death, had a fixation with torture, violence and death and drew up a “kill list” of child victims.
An alleged “murder plan” to kill Brianna was found in the bedroom of X, who had an interest in serial killers, and she described herself as a “Satanist” the jury heard.
The trial continues.
