British teens sentenced to 20 years in prison for killing of transgender teen Brianna Ghey

Feb. 2 (UPI) -- Two British teenagers were sentenced Friday to at least 20 years in prison each for luring a 16-year-old transgender girl to a park and killing her last year.

Justice Amanda Yip handed down a minimum sentence of 22 years for Scarlett Jenkinson and 20 years to co-accused Eddie Ratcliffe.

Both Jenkinson and Ratcliffe were 16 when they murdered fellow teen Brianna Ghey in a Cheshire park in broad daylight. Ghey's transgender identity was one of the key motives in the case, the judge said.

Publication bans covering the highly publicized trial were lifted Friday, allowing the names of the two teens to be released to the public.

During her ruling, Yip said the two killers were obsessed with torture, saying both had a "deep desire to kill."

Ghey suffered 28 stab wounds, court heard during the trial.

The openly transgender teen had a large following on the TikTok social media app.

Yip called the teen "out and proud" while describing her reasoning behind the sentences.

A psychologist who testified as an expert witness for the prosecution said Jenkinson "understood she had stabbed Brianna enough times to kill her and was excited by what she was doing."

"You both took part in a brutal and planned murder which was sadistic in nature and where a secondary motive was hostility towards Brianna because of her transgender identity," Yip said during sentencing, pointing to "transphobic and dehumanizing" messages about Ghey sent between Jenkinson and Ratcliffe.

"I would never want them to have the opportunity to carry out their sadistic fantasies on another child," Yip told the court, which included Ghey's friends and family members.

Jenkinson and Ratcliffe also had family in the Manchester courtroom.