Femicide Census says more mums killed by sons than by strangers | UK News

More women were killed by their son than by a stranger, according to new figures from a campaign group looking at violence against women.

The latest report by Femicide Census says, of 121 women killed by men in 2022, 12 were killed by their sons and 11 were killed by someone they did not know.

The organisation’s executive director Dr Karen Ingala Smith said for every woman killed by her son there were “many more living with and enduring serious violence and abuse”.

One mother from the Midlands said her son was 12 when he first hit her and there were “only so many times you can be told by social services there’s nothing more we can do”.

The 34-year-old said: “It wasn’t how we’d brought him up. We just didn’t know how to get out of it.”

Her family spent two years asking the authorities for support and fitted CCTV cameras in their home when they felt unheard, she said.

“Then we were criticised for using the police too much,” her partner said.

Despite more than 60 police call-outs, the couple said the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) refused to prosecute their autistic teenage son because “it wasn’t in the public interest”.

“This is full-on assaults, GBH, ABH, sometimes strangulation,” the boy’s step-father said.

“But you’re told to sit and watch an hour of TV with them. Show them that you still love them.”

Their son was taken in to care this year after an incident during which his step-father “thought he was going to murder” his mother.

“She was on the floor, being stamped on, from head to foot,” he said.

Femicide Census’ study said most female victims had been killed by a partner (27) or spouse (24), or former partner (10) or former spouse (1).

The next most common category of violence included women killed by sons (12) or fathers (1).

The study looked at men convicted of killing women, men found responsible for a death by an inquest, and men who were the prime suspect or charged in relation to a death in cases not yet concluded.

Dr Ingala Smith said the organisation was “dealing with the tip of the iceberg” as there were “many more” cases of violence that did not result in death.

“Women who are victims of this abuse may not recognise it as a form of domestic violence and abuse and may not think that existing support services will be available to them,” she said.

“In fact, sometimes they’re right, too few services such as the police, health, local authority homelessness and even domestic violence and abuse services adequately recognise the extent and potential severity of son-to-mother violence and do not have specialist tailored support to deal with it.”

The government said it would halve violence against woman and girls over the next 10 years.

Minister for Safeguarding and Violence Against Women and Girls, Jess Phillips, said: the scale of the issue was “nothing less than a national emergency”.

“That’s why we have pledged to halve violence against women and girls in a decade, including tackling child to parent abuse through an effective system to ensure problematic behaviours and victims are identified early, and services respond effectively to stop harmful behaviour from continuing or escalating.”

The government also plans to overhaul the policing and criminal justice response to domestic abuse “to ensure that more victims are protected and more perpetrators are punished”.

Previous data from Femicide Census suggests far fewer women are killed by adopted sons than biological sons – three, as opposed to 172, over the period of the earlier study.

The latest survey does not give comparable figures, but Dr Ingala Smith said the organisation believed the disparity was because biological mothers find it very difficult to “close the door” on their child.

While not wanting to “undermine any relationship between step-parents and sons or daughters”, she believed a biological mother “might remain the last person to have your back”, she said.

“A mother is likely to know that she is her son’s last remaining option.”

A number of adoptive families have told the they face repeated violence, and in some cases, have felt they had no choice but to return their child to care.

One mother said she had been “battered and bruised, threatened with knives” while another said it had been a “brutal, terrifying experience to live in fear of your own child, while still loving them deeply”.

A couple who had adopted a child said they were “completely broken” and had been “left to get on, with no support”.

A mother from the north-east of England, who adopted her daughter as a baby almost 10 years ago, said the child had started hitting and headbutting her when she was three.

Within six months the mother resorted to turning off the electricity and sleeping with the kitchen knives hidden under her mattress to keep them away from her daughter.

“I was risk assessing to the max, to keep us both safe and prevent her doing something to me that she would regret for the rest of her life,” she said.

The 53-year-old said for four years she repeatedly asked the authorities for respite care but was only offered parenting courses.

“Neither of us were safe,” she said.

The law in England does not currently recognise that under 16s are capable of domestic violence, although there have been calls for that to change.

No authority in England has a statutory duty to help families and support varies around the country.

Therapists, academics and social workers caution against physical restraint and say early intervention is preferable.

But Durham University researcher, Nikki Rutter, said that is “very rarely occurring in many local authorities”.

“They’re dealing with the problem when it reaches crisis, rather than preventing it,” she said.

“[Parents are] crying out for help, quite often from the child being four years old, and nothing is being done.”

Without a statutory duty to help, services can say an issue is not their responsibility or that they are not commissioned to provide support, she said.

“For families, it must feel like there’s no way out,” she added.

The adoptive mother concluded her only way out was to end the adoption.

“I dropped her at school and I said goodbye to her,” she said.

In her mind she had decided: “I’m not picking her up.”

The mother informed the school and social services but said she would never recover from the decision to return her daughter to care.

“I gave up everything in my life for my child, and it wasn’t enough.”