It is inaccurate to attribute murder-suicides to mental health difficulties alone

THIS is a tragedy and we don’t know the circumstances or facts as yet.

There is a real danger that in an attempt to try and understand how this could happen, we immediately attribute these children’s deaths to mental health factors as we have done in other similar cases, including those which have later emerged as being so-called “murder-suicides.”

Even if it emerges that the perpetrator of these murders had a mental health illness history, it is inaccurate and deeply stigmatising to attribute such acts to mental health difficulties alone.