Domestic Violence and Child Murder

I was listening to a radio talk show this morning that discussed the man who yesterday stabbed his two small children to death and then killed himself. The question was ‘Why do some men do this and why is there an increase in this kind of behaviour?” People called in to say that the man was obviously suffering from a mental illness, or that it was obvious that men love their children so much that they ‘black out and do something they regret,’ or that, because men are now much more involved in the care of their children, when access to those children is under threat they 'panic and act out of character.'

The next hour was spent talking about April Jones, the little girl who’s been abducted, and how to protect children.

I was struck by the lack of complexity, almost the lack of irony involved in both these discussions: When a child is abducted we all scream for the perpetrator to be lynched. When a father stabs his two children to death – imagine that for a moment, imagine the fathers actions –we call that “A tragedy.”

We know that ‘stranger danger’ is a myth, that most abuse occurs within the home and is perpetrated by people the child knows, very often the child’s own parents, another family member or friends of the family. Ben aged 7 and Freya aged 6 were killed by their father, and yet when this happens it’s is never called child abuse. The media seldom call by its technical name, which is Family Annihilation, a phenomenon that’s rapidly on the increase.

If you Google ‘Father kills children then himself” you will find page upon page of reports of family annihilation which are always linked to domestic violence.

At this point, many people will rush to say that women kill their kids too. This is true but the father kills 95% of children murdered by a parent. The reasons for killing are very different too: most mothers who kill do so because they’re afraid of what the father will do to the children or are genuinely psychotic. Fathers kill as the ultimate punishment to any mother when the mother makes a break from her abusive husband. (This is, by the way, one good reason why women don’t leave abusive relationships – if they and the kids are going to be killed, it’s most likely to happen when they leave.)

We treat women who kill children as “abominable, despicable, vile and horrible” as one judge called a woman who killed her children rather than hand them over to their convicted paedophile father. When a father kills we search hard for reasons to excuse him.

The massive majority of fathers who are separated from their children by relationship breakdown do not go on to kill their children or themselves. They’re also sad, angry, upset, miss their children and the family home, are shocked, anxious, depressed and sometimes even panicky about suddenly being alone in the world. But they don’t kill their kids. This is overwhelmingly an issue of angry men who treat people as things they own. They’re allowed to do that because as a society we make excuses for them.

Domestic violence isn’t a woman’s issue; it’s an issue that affects everyone who cares about children’s wellbeing. If all of those people now feeling very sad that two young children have been stabbed to death by their ‘tragic dad’ cared as much about domestic violence, perhaps Ben and Freya might still be alive.