Sarah Harte: Families of murdered women know how the system has let them down — listen to them
Valerie French Kilroy (pictured) was murdered by her husband in 2019. He was given a mandatory life sentence last year.
The bravery of some people is breathtaking.
I refer to three people who suffered the earth-shattering tragedy of having a sibling murdered in a domestic homicide. All are campaigning to preserve their sisters' legacies and to change things for other victims of domestic abuse.
They want various arms of the State to learn from mistakes in responding to domestic abuse. In the aftermath of unimaginable personal tragedies, they want us to design effective systems, laws and processes. We should all want that.
Last week, I met David French at a ‘5 Books That Could Save Your Life’ domestic violence event in the Department of Justice. The all-island project educates people about coercive control and domestic homicide.
It was developed by Haven Horizons, an organisation dedicated to preventing domestic violence, in partnership with Belfast and Lisburn Women’s Aid and Reclaim the Agenda. I moderated the event.
It turned out I know David French’s family, as he is originally from Leap in West Cork, near where I live. David is the brother of Valerie French (aged 41), who was murdered by her husband, James Kilroy, in 2019.
Last year, in July, Kilroy was given a mandatory life sentence. Since then, David French’s focus has moved “to protecting children placed in this horrific situation”.
His three nephews, Valerie’s sons, who were under the age of five when she was murdered, were taken into care in June 2019 against the French family’s wishes. The pain of that must be, to quote Mr French, “beyond words”.
'Valerie's Law' aims to implement a government recommendation from 2023 that a parent convicted of the murder or manslaughter of the other parent does not retain guardianship of the surviving child or children. The proposed act is to be called the Guardianship of Infants (Amendment) Bill, 2025.
David French is campaigning for a rethink of who might adjudicate on what the best interests of children might be in the aftermath of a domestic homicide. He has recently asked the Joint Committee on Justice, Home Affairs and Migration to consider that Tusla (the Child and Family Agency), by virtue of its statutory function, is not neutral when it comes to removing guardianship from a parent convicted of killing the other family member.
It is Mr French’s view that Tusla regard it as their role to reunify the remaining family, which means the parent who committed the domestic homicide and the surviving children. Try and wrap your head around that, but that perspective is a cultural hangover from old Catholic Ireland, where the family was everything, no matter the cost.
An assessment document sent to the French family by Tusla included these lines: “Tusla is worried that their potential carers [the French family] may not want to talk about the boys’ father with them or want the boys to visit him or have contact with him in the future.
What a sick joke.
David French has rationally said: “It is very clear that this absolutely prioritises the role of the father and does not fully understand or acknowledge the immense damage caused to the children by his killing of their mother. There is also a lack of understanding of the perspective of the victim’s family towards the father.”
As he says, killing a child’s mother is child abuse, and children must be protected from abusers. He suggests that the Ombudsman for Children’s Office, as a neutral child-centric statutory body, could better assess a child’s needs after a conviction for domestic homicide.
His book is praised for providing unique insights into issues faced by victims’ families in the aftermath of fatal domestic violence.
Last week, Justice Minister Jim O’Callaghan received Cabinet approval for establishing a Domestic Violence Register. The details are to be ironed out, but Jennie's Law will allow those convicted of domestic violence against a partner or former partner to be publicly named on a Register of Judgments.
Jennifer’s brother Jason Poole has tirelessly campaigned for such a register, which he said will change ‘the culture of domestic violence’.’ The register, he said, “will be publicly available for victims or potential victims to be able to access, so they know their partner, they know who they’re living with”.
Jennifer Poole was a 24-year-old mother of two when she was murdered in April 2021 by her then-partner, Gavin Murphy. Murphy had previously served a term in prison for assaulting another woman.
Under the new register, domestic violence judgments will be published online by the Courts Service so that abusers will be named. Jason Poole wants the legislation to enable gardaí to warn those at risk proactively.
Jacqueline Connolly’s new book, , has just been shortlisted for the Irish Book Week Non-Fiction Book of the Year 2025. In 2016, her sister Clodagh Hawe (aged 39) and three sons, Liam, Niall and Ryan, were murdered by Alan Hawe before he took his own life.
details Connolly’s fight for justice on their behalf because she, like French and Poole, is fighting for systemic change.
Jacqueline Connolly battled to ensure the Garda Serious Crime Review team reviewed the murders. This review revealed critical failings in the initial Garda inquest. Note the title: , because it was a major struggle to receive answers as to why Alan Hawe had killed his wife and three sons.
Although Jacqueline Connolly had a positive relationship with the second Garda investigation team, she rightly wants the findings of that review made public to aid domestic violence services in expanding and advancing their policies. Is that too much to ask?
This kind of knowledge would help frontline professionals to better predict abuse by understanding the patterns and timelines preceding domestic homicide.
It would save lives, and as Connolly said, “align with the prevention and protection pillars of the Government’s third national strategy on domestic, sexual, and gender-based violence".
The three cases make it patently clear that we must change our response to domestic abuse and coercive control if we are to prevent more domestic homicides.
We must also urgently ensure that investigation and review processes are conducted in a manner sensitive to the victim's family’s needs.
These survivors are themselves victims retraumatised due to deficient processes and a lack of training for frontline professionals coming into contact with survivors.
Brave, dignified people like David French, Jason Poole, and Jacqueline Connolly should always be consulted, should they wish to be involved in figuring out how we can do better.
As Dr Stephanie O’Keeffe, CEO of Cuan, the Domestic, Sexual and Gender-Based Violence Agency, said at last week’s ‘5 Books That Could Save Your Life’ event, survivors' voices must be at the centre of our response.
Survivors’ experiential knowledge gained in the most painful of ways can only improve services and our response to domestic abuse, protecting other women and children.
At the very least, we owe survivors that and their loved ones who are gone forever.
The five books included in '5 books to save your life' are:
- , by Luke and Ryan Hart, whose mother and sister were murdered by their father in a domestic homicide;
- by Spice Girl and coercive control survivor Mel B;
- , by psychologist Dr Lisa Aronson Fontes;
- by Professor Jane Monckton Smith, a criminologist and former UK police officer;
- and by Professors Kate Fitz-Gibbon and Sandra Walklate, experts in the field of domestic abuse.
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