New mothers and pregnant women most likely to be killed by older male partners – study
Clodagh Hawe's sister Jacqueline Connelly and mother Mary Coll at Cavan Court House in 2017 after the inquests into the deaths of Clodagh and her three children who were murdered by her husband, Alan Hawe. File picture: Brian Lawless/PA
Pregnant women or new mothers in their 30s or 40s are most likely to be victims of intimate partner homicide, according to a new study into domestic murder homicides.
Their partners are also more likely to be at least a decade older than them and to have subjected them to some form of domestic abuse before killing them.
The study states that, without exception, women are at the greatest risk of becoming victims of domestic homicide which is most often perpetrated by a male current or former partner.
The Study on Familicide and Domestic and Family Violence Death Reviews notes there is “a lack of empirical research on intimate partner homicide in the Irish context”. But the study — launched three years after teacher Alan Hawe murdered his wife Clodagh and their three children in their Cavan home in 2016 — says international literature on risk factors for domestic homicide are uniform in their conclusions.
These studies say the most common risk factor for domestic homicide is a previous history of domestic abuse. This is followed closely by actual or pending separation.
Other risk factors include presence of children from a prior relationship, with the presence of children associated with nearly double the risk of domestic violence.
The study, published on Wednesday, is dedicated to the memory of those who died as a result of familicide or domestic homicide in Ireland.
It states that there is no standardised risk assessment tool used across service provision in Ireland.
Different sectors and services are “not speaking the same ‘language’ when it comes to risk assessment”, the study noted.
The study recommends that legislation should be brought in to create structures to collate administrative data held by agencies.
“Information sharing structures should be mobilised to share relevant data with families and service providers,” the study notes.
It also calls for the creation of a national database on domestic and family violence deaths that is “mutually compatible with the Garda Pulse system and the proposed Criminal Justice Operational Hub”.
It is hoped this could help “yield a focus on the actions and intentions of perpetrators” and help prevent domestic murder homicides happening in the first place.
The study noted families have been forced to pay to clean up crime scenes where loved ones have been killed in their homes. It says government policy is needed to indicate the responsible agency to arrange and pay for crime scene cleaning.
Justice Minister Simon Harris said of the study: “We really need to understand where the system is working and where it is not. We want to try to prevent such incidents from happening.”
• Meanwhile, inquests into the double murder-suicide that rocked a small north Kerry community more than a year and a half ago are due to be held later on Wednesday.
Morris “Mossie” O’Sullivan, 63, shot his partner Eileen, 56, and the couple’s son, Jamie, 24, at their home in Lixnaw, Co Kerry on September 7, 2021.
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