Thursday briefing: What a new report reveals about the mothers being killed by their sons

The Guardian

06-03-2025

Good morning. Bhajan Kaur was killed by her son after he was arrested on suspicion of coercive and controlling behaviour. Mary Haley was killed by her son at home after he had spent weeks demanding money from her. Sally Poynton was killed by her son after he was discharged from a mental health unit without a diagnosis or support plan. These cases sound like horrifying outliers – but they are part of a pattern. Nearly one in 10 of all women who died at the hands of men in the last 15 years were killed by their sons.
Those are the bleak facts laid out by Alexandra Topping and Jessica Murray in reporting this week on a new report published by the Femicide Census, a group that collates data on the killing of women by men. Yesterday, Alexandra published a new story, which revealed that one in eight women killed by men are over 70, and carried warnings their vulnerability is not properly recognised. While every case has its own specific circumstances, experts say that misogyny is a theme throughout – and that because the situation has previously been so poorly understood, not enough is being done to address it.
For today's newsletter, I spoke to Alexandra Topping about what we now know about the nature of the problem – and what can be done to stop it. Here are the headlines.
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The data that informs Alexandra Topping and Jessica Murray's reporting this week is gleaned from the 2,000 Women report, conducted by the Femicide Census. The fact that women are sometimes killed by their sons will not be news to experts in the field – but even they may not know the frequency with which it is happening.
'If you work in domestic abuse settings, you know about the abuse of older women,' Alexandra said. 'It wouldn't be entirely surprising. But nearly one in 10 murders of women by men being sons killing mothers – I think the extent of it would shock even those in the sector.'
Why is this happening?
'The data shows us that mental health problems play a big part,' Alexandra said – 58% of cases analysed in the report, and 70% of cases where women were killed by their sons and grandsons in a linked academic study to be published soon. 'But in a lot of cases, these are women who have gone to the authorities with their fears. One thing that really stood out to me is the cases where a mental health problem has been identified, and there may be an order in place that a young man can't have contact with other women – but he can continue to have contact with his mother, and no risk assessment is done.'
Another bleak social factor appears to be the increase in the numbers of young men living at home well into adulthood. 'That is often because of a lack of affordable housing,' Alexandra said. 'We see cases where that puts more pressure on family dynamics, and also means that mothers are just living in closer proximity to their sons.
'What is also fundamentally true is that these killings cannot be treated in isolation. And even in many cases where mental health is a factor, the same thing is at the root of sons killing mothers or intimate partners, and that is misogyny.'
How does this change our understanding of femicide in the UK?
Before the Femicide Census started gathering data on the killing of women by men in 2015, there was very little data available on the circumstances of these cases. As the project's founders Karen Ingala Smith and Clarissa O'Callaghan write here: 'By collating femicides, we can see that these killings are not isolated incidents, and many follow repeated patterns.'
There is now a growing body of research. But even as the data has been developed, the particular issues of sons killing mothers, and of older women being killed by men, has been poorly understood. The new report helps address that gap.
'It's really a hidden problem,' Alexandra said. 'The experts say that we don't know enough about this in part because it's a subject shrouded in shame: women being abused by their sons may not feel able to reach out for help. Or it may be that the help simply isn't there. You can't provide the support unless you know the problem exists, and these statistics aren't available anywhere else.'
Aren't fathers just as likely to be killed?
It is true that fathers and mothers are killed by their children in roughly similar numbers – but that fact masks some crucial points that lend weight to the case that this is a specifically misogynist problem. First, there is the fact that in the overwhelming majority of both types of case, the killer is a man. 'There is no shortage of daughters suffering mental health problems, but they are vanishingly unlikely to murder a parent,' Alexandra said.
Second, there is the fact that matricide makes up a much larger proportion of all killings of women than patricide does of killings of men – and while that is partly because more men are killed overall, it is also true that those cases are much more likely to be in violent altercations: women are much more likely to be killed because they are women.
Third, there is the grim fact that mothers are more likely than fathers to be the victims of 'overkilling' – that is, extreme attacks where the level of violence used is significantly in excess of what would be necessary to cause death. And finally, the cases of fathers being killed are more frequently linked to childhood abuse.
How does the system deal with these cases?
Both before and after the killing happens, there are serious questions about how the perpetrators are being treated. The case studies set out in Jessica Murray's reporting often describe sons with a history of violence, who may previously have been arrested for assault or coercive control before the killing finally happened.
One particularly bleak example is that of Kelly Pitt, whose son Lewis Bush had been convicted of battery against her and his sister, and who repeatedly reported his aggressive behaviour at her house. In May 2023, Pitt called her daughter, and Bush could be heard in the background verbally abusing her; she was found dead two days later with 41 rib fractures.
'We hear a lot of stories about women who have been in contact with the state, whether it's through mental health services or social services or the police,' Alexandra said. 'But there seems to be a sense that mothers are the ones who are always there to pick up the pieces, rather than at risk themselves.'
After the killing has happened, more than a fifth of the perpetrators are convicted of manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility or culpable homicide rather than murder. Sons convicted of killing their mothers are also more likely to be sent to a mental health facility than men who kill their partners or former partners.
'There is often a genuine mental health need,' Alexandra said. 'But there are questions about how frequently the defence is used, and how differently it is viewed in these cases.'
Is enough being done to stop it?
Labour's election manifesto included a commitment to halve violence against women and girls in a decade. While the government's strategy is yet to be published – it is expected in the first half of this year – 'there is stuff happening already that is practically useful', Alexandra said. She pointed to a pilot programme embedding domestic abuse specialists in 999 control rooms as an example. And new Domestic Abuse Protection Orders (DAPOs) announced in November are meant to provide enhanced powers for police and courts to monitor and sanction those told to stay away from their victims.
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These are only first steps. 'Yvette Cooper and Jess Phillips have both been talking about this stuff for a very long time,' Alexandra said. 'I don't doubt that they really want to do something about it. But this is something that takes a genuinely cross-government response, and every department is fighting for their own budget.'
On the specific problems of sons killing mothers and violence against older women, there's a lot of catching up to do. 'It is still the case that young women being killed by strangers get the most media attention,' Alexandra said. 'But they are a vanishingly small cohort in a much larger group.' A mother being killed by her son may seem to some like a horrible tragedy from which little can be gleaned – but that attitude is exactly the reason that there is so much to do to stop it.
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