The mother of murdered teenager Brianna Ghey has called for the government to stop children having access to social media apps on smartphones.

Speaking for the first time since the killers’ sentencing, Esther Ghey called the internet the “Wild West”.

Scarlett Jenkinson had watched videos of violence and torture on the dark web.

Jenkinson plotted the murder with Eddie Ratcliffe using messaging apps.

Ms Ghey, who is launching a petition to demand the changes, also wants companies to flag searches of inappropriate material, like the videos Jenkinson saw, to parents.

She said: “We’d like a law introduced so that there are mobile phones that are only suitable for under-16s.

“So if you’re over 16, you can have an adult phone, but then under the age of 16, you can have a children’s phone, which will not have all of the social media apps that are out there now. And also to have software that is automatically downloaded on the parents’ phone which links to the children’s phone, that can highlight key words.

“So if a child is searching the kind of words that Scarlett and Eddie were searching, it will then flag up on the parent’s phone.”