'Positive meeting' Remarkable result of invitation from Brianna's mother

In an anonymous office in a Warrington business park , two mothers met last week for the first time. Esther Ghey and Emma Sutton sat down for what one restorative justice expert called the most “extraordinarily unusual” meeting he had heard of in 30 years.

- Helen Pidd

Ghey’s 16-year-old daughter, Brianna , was murdered in a nearby park last year by two teenagers, one of whom she thought was her friend. That was Scarlett Jenkinson , Sutton’s daughter, the “driving force” behind planning and executing the “exceptionally brutal” stabbing.

Within 48 hours of Jenkinson being sentenced to a minimum of 22 years in prison last month, Ghey told the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg that she was open to meeting Sutton, insisting: “I don’t blame her for what her child has done.”

Last week, it happened. There were no professional mediators present, just Tom Bedworth, a former journalist from the Warrington Guardian who had worked with Ghey on her Peace in Mind fundraising campaign , and Sutton’s brother, Rob.

“It was a positive and respectful meeting,” Ghey revealed afterwards. She said they had discussed “the challenges of parenting” and that she would be willing to campaign with Sutton on the dangers for children of mobile phones and the internet .

Prof Lawrence Sherman, one of the world’s leading experts in restorative justice, said of the meeting between Ghey and Sutton: “I’ve never heard of anything like that before. In 30 years, I have never heard a victim or survivor of crime offering through the media to have a meeting – and for that offer to be accepted so quickly. The fact they may even partner on these issues is even more remarkable.”