Mums whose daughters were killed in domestic violence attacks say their grief is being compounded by the injustice of the sentences handed to the murderers.
In most circumstances, if an abuser murders a partner or family member in their own home they will get a life sentence with a minimum term of 15 years – 10 years fewer than if they had killed the same person in the street.
Families who have been calling on the Government to end this disparity have won a public consultation into the issue, and now have just five weeks left to rally support in their battle to bring about a change in the law.
The Mirror is today launching a campaign – Justice for our Daughters – to help the bid to stop domestic violence killers being jailed for a decade less than other murderers.
Grieving mum Carole Gould said: “They’re basically saying our daughters’ lives aren’t worth as much as somebody being killed on the street.” Her 17-year-old daughter Ellie was murdered in her home in 2019 by her ex-boyfriend Thomas Griffiths.
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Griffiths, also 17 at the time, began strangling her then stabbed her 13 times in the neck. The killer was given a minimum term of 12 years, six months (this works out as 15 years minus three-and-a-half years for being aged under 18). The sentence would have been 10 years more had the crime been in the street.
Carole, 53, said: “If somebody stabbed somebody once in a park that’s worth 25 years. Surely multiple stabbing in the home should be worth at least the same starting point.”
She added: “It feels to me that it’s male on male violence in the street and their lives are worth more. Whereas it’s male on female violence in the home – and those female lives are worth 10 years less.”
Julie Devey is demanding the law is changed (Rowan Griffiths / Daily Mirror)
Mother Julie Devey and her daughter, Poppy, who was murdered by her ex boyfriend Joe Atkinson (Julie Devey)Carole, from Wiltshire, co-founded action group Killed Women with another grieving mum Julie Devey. They are among those trying to force the Government to raise the minimum jail term for domestic murders.
Julie’s daughter Poppy Devey Waterhouse was 24 when she was stabbed dozens of times by her ex Joe Atkinson. As she was murdered in the flat they shared, his minimum term was determined using 15 years as the starting point, not 25.
After adding 14 months for aggravating factors, the judge sentenced Atkinson to a minimum of 16 years and two months – a decade less than he probably would have got had he killed Poppy elsewhere.
Julie, 60, from Frome, Somerset, said: “The sentencing diminishes the lives of the women who were taken in this way. My daughter’s life is worth 10 years less than somebody murdered by a stranger in the street.
“There’s no amount of years that will bring our daughters back, but separating them from other murders is wrong. It’s unfair and unjust.”
The different minimum tariffs hinge on whether the killer took the weapon to the scene of the crime.
The perpetrator will have done so in most attacks that aren’t in homes, which is why those murders meet the criteria for a 25-year minimum tariff. With domestic violence, the killers often use a weapon that was already in the property. That means their minimum tariff will be 15 years, plus any extra time for aggravating factors.
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Julie and Carole want a 25-year minimum for any murder with a weapon (except guns, which already has a term of at least 30 years).
The public consultation on the proposals runs until March 4. The Mirror is urging readers to register their support for the law change with the Ministry of Justice.
Our campaign also calls for measures such as strangulation to be classed as an aggravating factor so it also results in tougher sentences. The campaign is backed by Labour leader Keir Starmer and Shadow Home Secretary Yvette Cooper.
Ms Cooper said: “Under the Tories, dangerous domestic abuse perpetrators are being let off and victims are being badly let down. This catastrophic collapse in prosecutions and convictions, alongside growing delays in the criminal justice system, is putting vulnerable victims at risk. Enough is enough.
“Labour has set out an unprecedented mission to halve violence against women and girls within 10 years.”
Labour MP Jess Phillips said: “We shouldn’t have something in the law that says if you are killed at home with a weapon from your home, that that’s different to being killed with a weapon that has been taken to the scene. It discriminates against domestic murder, as if women’s lives matter less.”
A record number of people needed an injunction against a potential abuser last year. The National Centre for Domestic Violence received over 100,000 referrals from police and charities – up from 24,000 in 2013. Around 90% of the referrals concerned at-risk women. About 75 women are killed per year by a partner or an ex.
A spokesperson for the Ministry of Justice told the Mirror: “These are truly tragic cases and we would like to thank Carole Gould and Julie Devey for their tireless campaign to drive reform in this area after the deaths of their daughters, Ellie and Poppy, at the hands of their partners. We have taken action to toughen sentences for domestic killers, creating new statutory aggravating factors of overkill, coercive and controlling behaviour, and killing at the end of a relationship and are consulting on the starting point for all murders committed with a knife or weapon, or which are pre-empted by coercive and controlling behaviour."
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