'They just looked like normal teens'

NEIGHBOURS TELL OF SHOCK AT HEINOUS CRIMES OF GIRL AND BOY WHO RAISED FEW CONCERNS

- ANDREW BARDSLEY

EACH night after dark, groups of teenagers gather on the run-down shopping precinct at the heart of Leigh's Higher Folds estate.

Eddie Ratcliffe was never one of them.

In a close-knit community, where everyone knows each other, troublemakers become infamous.

While some of the boys his age had developed a reputation on the council estate, Ratcliffe was a shy, unassuming 15-year-old who stayed at home and enjoyed camping trips with his family.

To his neighbours, there was nothing to suggest he was anything other than an average teenage boy.

"There was nothing weird about him," one neighbour recalled. "He just seemed normal. I'd say 'hello' to him and he would say it back. He came across as a bit shy!" Now Ratcliffe - along with Scarlett Jenkinson has been unmasked as the brutal killer of 16-year-old Brianna Ghey.

Ratcliffe was a pupil at Culcheth High School, four miles from his home.

It was there Ratcliffe met Jenkinson, forming a friendship that would culminate in the most evil of acts.

On February 11 last year, the pair, both 15 at the time, brutally murdered Brianna Ghey in broad daylight in Culcheth Linear Park. Dog walkers found the 16-year-old lying in the park, having been stabbed 28 times in a ferocious attack.

Ratcliffe and Jenkinson had lured Brianna, a transgender girl from nearby Birchwood, to the park after meticulously plotting the killing on their phones.

Their neighbours had no idea what they were capable of. Neighbours said Ratcliffe hailed from a pleasant, respectable family, who 'kept themselves to themselves! His father manages a truck company and would often be spotted tinkering with vehicles outside the family's home on Imperial Drive. His mother is a ski instructor and graphic designer.

An academically-minded teenager, he harboured dreams of going to university and becoming a microbiologist.