Esther Ghey urges government to implement legal ban and says current guidance creates ‘postcode lottery’
Esther Ghey, the mother of the murdered teenager Brianna Ghey, and the Oscar-winning actor Kate Winslet are calling on Keir Starmer to legally ban smartphones in schools, warning current guidance against allowing phones has created a “postcode lottery”.
As children in England and Wales return to classes this week, Ghey said research showed that only 11% of secondary schools were currently implementing a full ban on bringing in smartphones or requiring them to be left in a secure and inaccessible place all day.
She said a ban would have “solved so many issues” for her daughter, who was “sucked away from society and into the online world where she was at risk of so many harms”.
Brianna, 16, a transgender girl from Warrington, was described as addicted to her phone. She was killed by two teenagers in February 2023, one of whom she believed to be her friend.
