SPECIAL REPORT: 20 years of the Femicide Watch Project
Sanctuaries violated by killers
Call for independent analysis of Irish murder-suicides
In the past 20 years, there have been 22 murder-suicides in this country where a man killed a woman and then killed himself.
The Women’s Aid Femicide Monitoring Project shows that in all but one of these cases, women were killed by a partner or ex partner. In just one of these 22 cases, the victim was killed by her son.
In four of these murder-suicides, the man killed not only a woman but also her children. Nine children in total have died in murder suicides in this country.
People struggle to understand murder-suicides, but the Women’s Aid figures show that it happens to rich and poor, urban and rural, young and old. Victims have ranged in age from 13 to 86.
Three years ago, deputy state pathologist Michael Curtis said murder-suicide appears to have become “a regular phenomenon of recent years”. He was commenting on research carried out by a student of forensic analysis and investigation at Sligo IT, Ciara Byrne, using data from the State Pathologists Office.
Interestingly, the director of research at the National Suicide Research Foundation (NSRF), Prof Ella Arensman disputes this, describing them as “a relatively rare event” earlier this year.
The Byrne research found that most Irish murder-suicide killers had no history of previous psychiatric illness or notable drink and drugs problems.
In the US, Jacquelyn C Campbell of John Hopkins University has pointed out that a 10-city research study showed that in 70% of murder-suicide cases involving intimate partners, there was a history of domestic violence. “Prior domestic violence is by far the number-one risk factor in these cases,” said Ms Campbell.
The country came to a standstill this summer when we learnt of the death of Clodagh Hawe and her three sons, Niall, Liam, and Ryan in Co Cavan. Women’s Aid was not happy at the “sympathetic media narrative” around Alan Hawe where he was painted as “an outwardly respected and trusted pillar of the community” with “mental health seen as the most likely motivation for this brutal crime”.
The killings were not being depicted as extreme domestic violence, they said.
The support group for domestic abuse victims say they experienced a “dramatic increase in calls in the immediate aftermath of the murder of Clodagh Hawe and her boys”.
“Our staff and volunteers on the 24-hour helpline were supporting women afraid of their partners who had threatened to kill them, the kids or themselves. And their fears are founded on reality,” says the Behind Closed Doors report.
On August 30, Women’s Aid posted on Facebook the statistics of women murdered by a current or former partner.
“This changed the way the Cavan murders were being spoken about and resonated deeply with many women distressed by the crimes themselves and the sympathetic media narrative towards Alan Hawe. There were over 3,000 reactions, shares, and comments to this one post, including family members and friends remembering women they loved murdered; their pain still as raw as when it happened,” they said.
An comprehensive independent analysis of Irish murder-suicides in this country has not taken place but should according to the NSRF. Prof Arensman has called for independent, in-depth investigations of each case “in order to improve our knowledge of risk factors and patterns”.
Call for multi-agency reviews
Women’s Aid is calling for the introduction for systemic reviews of domestic violence homicides to be introduced.
Such multi-agency reviews would involve family members, friends, social services, the Garda Siochána and voluntary agencies.
According to the authors of Behind Closed Doors, domestic homicide reviews (DHRs) take place in other countries and allow for better recognition and management of the risk factors that can put women at risk of death from people they know.
The information provided by each participant to the review is used to draw a picture of what was happening in the woman’s life in the run-up to the homicide and helps formulate recommendations for change.
“Women’s Aid recommends that Ireland commences the practice of reviewing of all domestic violence homicides. In other jurisdictions, DHRs are systematic multi-agency reviews which are understood to be a route to improving both risk assessment and management alongside identifying gaps in policy and practice.
“Typically, DHRs involve sharing information between statutory agencies, NGOs and family and other informal networks,” the authors said.
The Second National Strategy on Domestic, Sexual and Gender Based Violence was published by the Department of Justice earlier this year with the aim of changing societal attitudes, improving supports to victims and survivors and holding perpetrators to account.
According to the gardaí, its Garda National Protective Services Bureau (GNPSB) is at the forefront of this strategy.
“An Garda Síochána has already established Victim Support Offices in all 28 divisions, we are also revising our policy on domestic abuse intervention and are developing risk assessment tools to identify and manage risk within families,” said a spokesman.
It is also undertaking a domestic homicide review process to see what gardaí can learn from these cases.
“The Garda Síochána Analysis Service is reviewing incidents of domestic related homicide and plans are in place for the development of a Domestic Homicide review process within GNPSB which will actually review specific cases to identify learning for future improvement,” he said.
Women’s Aid has welcomed the commitment by An Garda Síochána to the Second Domestic Violence Strategy and particularly its “focus on the perpetrator of domestic violence and the identification and recording of all crimes with a domestic violence motive”.
“We recommend that these initiatives are fully resourced,” a spokeswoman said.
However, it has urged Cosc, the National Office for the Prevention of Domestic, Sexual and Gender-based Violence, to go further.
“The piloting of risk assessment and management by An Garda Síochána is a most welcome development but we need to go a step further,” the Behind Closed Doors authors said.
Domestic homicide reviews would facilitate a refining of risk factors, raise awareness among stake holders and offer direction for improvement in protection for women and children.
We will continue to shine a light on what happens behind closed doors
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