Esther Ghey
Bereaved-Parent Campaigners · Phone-Free Education
Leads the Phone-Free Education campaign and petitioned the Prime Minister for a schools smartphone ban.
Esther Ghey leads the Phone-Free Education campaign, an advocacy effort pushing for restrictions on smartphone use in UK schools. As part of this campaign, she wrote an open letter to the Prime Minister calling for stronger national action on phones in schools. Ghey's advocacy has kept the question of school phone policy in the UK public debate, adding a prominent voice to the broader push for phone-free classrooms. Her campaign work is part of a wider set of parent-led efforts in the UK aimed at limiting children's smartphone access during the school day.
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WORKS IN THE LIBRARY (11)
STUDIES
Esther Ghey: 'The Internet Unleashed Horrific Things'
This New Statesman profile, published by Sarah Dawood shortly after the sentencing of her daughter Brianna's killers, is one of Esther Ghey's earliest in-depth interviews. In it, Ghey argues for banning social media apps on under-16s' devices and for stronger age-verification on platforms, and criticizes the Online Safety Act as insufficient. The piece describes Brianna's own history of self-harm and disordered eating, which the article says worsened alongside her exposure to harmful social media content, and introduces Ghey's Peace in Mind mindfulness campaign. TechKids Foundation cites this interview as an early, widely read statement of Ghey's policy positions in her own words, delivered to a mainstream political-current-affairs outlet, and notes that the piece frames platform exposure as associated with — not the sole explanation for — the deterioration in her daughter's wellbeing that Ghey describes.
Esther Ghey Says Social Media Firms Won't Put Lives Before Profit
In this BBC News piece by Miriam Barker, published around a documentary screening about Brianna Ghey, Esther Ghey says she no longer believes any social media company will prioritize user safety over profit. She describes major platforms as poorly moderated and calls for age limits barring under-16s from social media, pointing to reports that some teenagers spend around eight hours a day on tablets and describing this level of use as unhealthy. The article also covers her continued push for 'brick' (basic, non-smartphone) phones as an alternative for children and her broader campaign for smartphone age limits and stricter app controls. TechKids Foundation cites this piece for its direct quotes from Ghey characterizing platform design and heavy device use as, in her words, incompatible with children's wellbeing — an association she draws from her own family's experience, not an independently adjudicated finding.
Esther Ghey: I Lost Brianna Twice — First, to Her Phone, Then to Her Murderers
This i News feature revisits the 2023 murder of Brianna Ghey and traces how one of her killers moved from watching true-crime content to violent dark-web material before the attack, while separately describing Brianna's own history of heavy social-media use, self-harm, and disordered eating. Esther Ghey is quoted describing feeling she lost her daughter in two stages — first to her phone, then to her murderers — and the piece covers her continuing advocacy for social-media age limits, stricter age verification, and safety-first phone design, alongside her weekly meetings with one killer's mother and her Peace and Mind mindfulness initiative. TechKids Foundation cites this profile for its detailed, association-language account of two separate documented harms — the killer's escalating exposure to violent online content, and Brianna's own self-harm-related exposure — treated by the piece as connected risk factors rather than sole causes of either outcome.
Brianna Ghey's Mother Esther Says Online Safety Act Does Not Go Far Enough
In this BBC News report, Esther Ghey argues the UK's Online Safety Act falls short of protecting children because hateful comments on social media are not classified as harmful content under the law, and calls for age restrictions preventing under-16s from holding social-media accounts. She describes children as heavily reliant on their phones, compares aspects of platform design to gambling-style engagement mechanics in her own words, and argues phone manufacturers bear a responsibility beyond commercial interest. The article notes her phone-restriction petition had passed 90,000 signatures and that her local mindfulness campaign had raised enough to fund a mindfulness teacher in every Warrington school. TechKids Foundation cites this piece as an early statement of Ghey's specific legislative critique, presented as her own policy argument rather than an independently verified claim about the law's effects.
Mindfulness in Schools — House of Commons Debate
This Hansard record documents a House of Commons debate on introducing mindfulness programs in English schools, led by Warrington North MP Charlotte Nichols and responded to by then-Minister Damian Hinds. Esther Ghey attended as a guest in the Public Gallery, and several MPs, including Andy Carter and Tim Farron, referred directly to her and to the local mindfulness fundraising campaign she started in Warrington following her daughter Brianna's death. Speakers argued mindfulness training is associated with improved focus and emotional regulation in children and cited rising mental-health pressures on young people linked in part to social-media use and academic stress, while the government response pointed to existing school mental-health programs and ongoing trials. TechKids Foundation cites this transcript as an official government record of Ghey's advocacy directly shaping a live legislative debate, distinct from her media interviews.
Petition: Change the Law to Make Phone Companies More Responsible for Children's Online Welfare
This Change.org petition, started by Esther Ghey through her Peace and Mind UK initiative days after her daughter's killers were sentenced, calls on mobile phone and social-media companies to accept greater responsibility for children's online welfare — specifically asking for age limits on smartphone use and stricter controls on social-app and unsupervised internet access. The petition text describes Brianna's killers as having used the internet to plan the attack and states that Brianna herself had accessed pro-eating-disorder and self-harm content on her phone. It has drawn well over 120,000 signatures. TechKids Foundation cites this petition as a primary campaign document authored by Ghey's own organization, phrased here as the petition's own claims about her daughter's documented online exposure rather than as an independently verified account.
Brianna Ghey's Mother Calls for School Smartphone Ban
This BBC News report covers the launch of Esther Ghey's Phone-Free Education campaign, which calls for a statutory ban on pupils accessing phones during the school day, enforced through lockable storage pouches, with exemptions for medical or accessibility needs. The article reports that Brianna's former school, Birchwood Community High School, logged 120 safeguarding entries and 116 behavior entries connected to her phone use over three years, and that Ghey received phone calls from the school roughly five times a day about related incidents. Ghey describes her daughter as having been unable to put her phone down and argues government funding is needed so schools are not left to manage phone-related disruption alone. TechKids Foundation cites this report for its documented, school-logged figures on phone-related safeguarding and behavior incidents tied to one specific case, presented as that school's own record rather than a national statistic.
Phone-Free Education — Open Letter to the Prime Minister and Education Secretary
Phone-Free Education is a campaign site run under Esther Ghey's Brianna's Legacy project, built around an open letter to the Prime Minister and the Secretary of State for Education asking for a statutory, enforced ban on pupils accessing phones during the school day, with proper storage solutions and exemptions for medical or accessibility needs. The site cites figures stating that only a small share of English schools ban phones outright, that most operate limited restrictions, and that a notable share of teenagers report daily lesson disruption from phones. The letter has been signed by actress Kate Winslet, actor Stephen Graham, and several MPs. TechKids Foundation cites this campaign page as Ghey's own primary policy document, presenting its cited figures as the campaign's own claims about the current state of school phone policy rather than independently audited statistics.
Transgender Day of Remembrance 2024: Esther Ghey on Creating a 'Lasting Positive Legacy' to Help Others Like Brianna
This Attitude Magazine feature covers a posthumous Inspiration Award given to Brianna Ghey at the Virgin Atlantic Attitude Awards and Esther Ghey's account of her daughter's life and death. Ghey recalls Brianna as an energetic child who later came out as transgender, and describes learning after Brianna's murder that she had accessed pro-eating-disorder pages and self-harm forums online, alongside her own experiences of anxiety and disordered eating. The piece covers Ghey's founding of Peace and Mind UK, which pursues both mindfulness training in schools and improved online safety for children as a 'lasting positive legacy' for her daughter. TechKids Foundation cites this profile for its detailed, association-language account of the specific harmful content categories Ghey says her daughter encountered, presented as her family's own documented experience rather than a general claim about all children's online risk.