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All the people featured in this article met their death in one year at the hands of partners or
ex-partners. The overwhelming majority are women.
Every woman in the article below was killed by her partner or ex in one year - and yet how many of their stories do we know? Few are reported in the national press, and at Guardian Weekend we wanted to discover who these people are, and what happened to them. The list makes shocking reading.
...
But perhaps the most shocking thing is the sentencing. Time and again, men who kill their wives get short sentences because courts believe a woman's infidelity, or even her "nagging", is bound to provoke a husband to commit murder. A recently reported example is Paul Dalton's killing of his wife, Tae Hui. Dalton punched her, she died, then he cut up her body with an electric saw, and stored the pieces in a freezer. He was cleared of murder on the grounds of provocation; the judge said that he had suffered "no little taunting on her (his wife's) part". Dalton received just two years in jail for her manslaughter, but got three years for what many might consider the lesser crime of preventing a burial. He is appealing against the sentence.
...
Here we list 68 women killed by men, two women killed by their female partners, and 10 men killed by women. The reasons men and women kill those close to them are very different. Women most often kill their husbands because they are themselves the victims of domestic abuse and can no longer cope - as in the famous case of the late Emma Humphreys, who killed her violent husband and was released on appeal. Or, more rarely, it's for money - the "black widow" syndrome - or when a woman has a history of domestic violence towards her partner.
The much more common story is of men who kill their wives, girlfriends, lovers and exes, and many have tried to work out why. Men commit almost all violent crime in the UK - 90% - but why do so many kill their intimate partners? Defence lawyers and judges often claim that wife-killers are just ordinary men who snap in a moment of extreme provocation. But this is quite unusual: there is only a small number of men who murder their partners without having previously used violence against them.
...
Far more common in murder cases is a history of violence by the offender against the victim. This may not have resulted in a criminal record, as often domestic violence is not reported to the police or courts or even friends; on average, according to Canadian research, a woman is beaten 35 times before her first call to the police. Our list represents the tip of the iceberg: not all domestic violence ends in murder, and for every woman killed there are thousands more who suffer years of abuse - one in nine women in the UK is severely beaten by her male partner each year.
In a new study, Professors Rebecca and Russell Dobash of Manchester University found that male murderers who used violence against their female partners tended to have more "conventional" backgrounds than, say, men who murder other men - they tended not to come from difficult homes, or to have fathers who used violence against their wives. However, they were likely to have used violence against previous or current partners - they "specialised" in violence against women.
Often, as is made plain from our evidence here, the state of the relationship is a catalyst for the killing. In many of the cases in our list, either the woman was in the process of leaving the relationship or it had already ended; this is considered particularly dangerous if the woman initiated the break-up and the man contests it. The months around separation from a violent partner are crucial.
"The thread that runs through this," say Dobash and Dobash, "is the man's sense of ownership of the woman, and his control over the continuation or cessation of the relationship."
Indeed, men's power over women is at the heart of this depressing story. Very often women are killed when they challenge that power, by trying to separate from their partners, or seeing someone else, or doing something that their partner doesn't want them to do. Perhaps we should not be surprised by the fact that two men a week kill their partners, when courts say that women can consent to sex while almost unconscious, when rape itself has a conviction rate of 5.3%, when twice as many men now visit prostitutes than a decade ago. Britain is not getting any safer for women, however many get to be CEOs.
Violence against women is mainstream - the British Crime Survey from 2004 shows that an astonishing 50% of all adult women have experienced domestic violence, sexual assault or stalking. (It was only in 1991 that it was made illegal for a man to rape his wife.) And we use euphemisms about domestic violence against women such as "a row that got out of hand" and "a volatile relationship", which make abusive relationships sound equal, just a bit of sparring. Press reports say, "Police are treating it as a domestic incident", as if that makes it a lesser crime.
...
http://www.theguardian.com/uk/2005/dec/10/ukcrime.prisonsandprobation
Every woman in the article below was killed by her partner or ex in one year - and yet how many of their stories do we know? Few are reported in the national press, and at Guardian Weekend we wanted to discover who these people are, and what happened to them. The list makes shocking reading.
...
But perhaps the most shocking thing is the sentencing. Time and again, men who kill their wives get short sentences because courts believe a woman's infidelity, or even her "nagging", is bound to provoke a husband to commit murder. A recently reported example is Paul Dalton's killing of his wife, Tae Hui. Dalton punched her, she died, then he cut up her body with an electric saw, and stored the pieces in a freezer. He was cleared of murder on the grounds of provocation; the judge said that he had suffered "no little taunting on her (his wife's) part". Dalton received just two years in jail for her manslaughter, but got three years for what many might consider the lesser crime of preventing a burial. He is appealing against the sentence.
...
Here we list 68 women killed by men, two women killed by their female partners, and 10 men killed by women. The reasons men and women kill those close to them are very different. Women most often kill their husbands because they are themselves the victims of domestic abuse and can no longer cope - as in the famous case of the late Emma Humphreys, who killed her violent husband and was released on appeal. Or, more rarely, it's for money - the "black widow" syndrome - or when a woman has a history of domestic violence towards her partner.
The much more common story is of men who kill their wives, girlfriends, lovers and exes, and many have tried to work out why. Men commit almost all violent crime in the UK - 90% - but why do so many kill their intimate partners? Defence lawyers and judges often claim that wife-killers are just ordinary men who snap in a moment of extreme provocation. But this is quite unusual: there is only a small number of men who murder their partners without having previously used violence against them.
...
Far more common in murder cases is a history of violence by the offender against the victim. This may not have resulted in a criminal record, as often domestic violence is not reported to the police or courts or even friends; on average, according to Canadian research, a woman is beaten 35 times before her first call to the police. Our list represents the tip of the iceberg: not all domestic violence ends in murder, and for every woman killed there are thousands more who suffer years of abuse - one in nine women in the UK is severely beaten by her male partner each year.
In a new study, Professors Rebecca and Russell Dobash of Manchester University found that male murderers who used violence against their female partners tended to have more "conventional" backgrounds than, say, men who murder other men - they tended not to come from difficult homes, or to have fathers who used violence against their wives. However, they were likely to have used violence against previous or current partners - they "specialised" in violence against women.
Often, as is made plain from our evidence here, the state of the relationship is a catalyst for the killing. In many of the cases in our list, either the woman was in the process of leaving the relationship or it had already ended; this is considered particularly dangerous if the woman initiated the break-up and the man contests it. The months around separation from a violent partner are crucial.
"The thread that runs through this," say Dobash and Dobash, "is the man's sense of ownership of the woman, and his control over the continuation or cessation of the relationship."
Indeed, men's power over women is at the heart of this depressing story. Very often women are killed when they challenge that power, by trying to separate from their partners, or seeing someone else, or doing something that their partner doesn't want them to do. Perhaps we should not be surprised by the fact that two men a week kill their partners, when courts say that women can consent to sex while almost unconscious, when rape itself has a conviction rate of 5.3%, when twice as many men now visit prostitutes than a decade ago. Britain is not getting any safer for women, however many get to be CEOs.
Violence against women is mainstream - the British Crime Survey from 2004 shows that an astonishing 50% of all adult women have experienced domestic violence, sexual assault or stalking. (It was only in 1991 that it was made illegal for a man to rape his wife.) And we use euphemisms about domestic violence against women such as "a row that got out of hand" and "a volatile relationship", which make abusive relationships sound equal, just a bit of sparring. Press reports say, "Police are treating it as a domestic incident", as if that makes it a lesser crime.
...
http://www.theguardian.com/uk/2005/dec/10/ukcrime.prisonsandprobation
This article is from 2005, and is from the UK. Yes it's old and yes it's not the US. You can just go on and assume it's worse here.
I would like to see many more articles about this. I think it needs to be an annual thing.
These women should not be invisible. Their deaths should not be relegated to back-page news (if they make the news at all). This pandemic of violence against women should not be treated like background noise.
12 replies
= new reply since forum marked as read
= new reply since forum marked as read
No need for hostility, really. I know nothing about you, and vice versa.
Just go away. 