‘I don’t blame her’: meeting of Esther Ghey and Emma Sutton shows power of restorative justice | Crime
In an anonymous office on a business park in Warrington, two mothers met last week for the first time. Esther Ghey and Emma Sutton sat down together for what one restorative justice expert called the most “extraordinarily unusual” meeting he had heard of in 30 years. Ghey’s 16-year-old daughter, Brianna, was murdered in a Warrington park last year by two teenagers, one of whom she thought was her friend. That friend 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, saying: “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 campaign, and Sutton’s brother, Rob. “It was a positive and respectful meeting,” Ghey said afterwards. She said …
