By William Collins aka MRA-UK: This is a minor revision to my earlier post “330 Child Homicides”. I have discovered a further serious case review from 2009 which appeared in my rough notes but did not get transcribed to the final post. I have provisionally identified this additional case with a spite killing of two children by a mother reported in “Learning from CAFCASS Individual Management Reviews (IMRs)“, November 2013. This brings the number of cases of spite killings, or ‘family annihilations’, by mothers to 5 (involving 8 children’s deaths) in the period 2009 to 2015, two of which occurred whilst the mother was ‘on contact’ – see Sections 9, 10 and 11.1. In particular the additional case is discussed in Section 10.2. If the additional case is not in fact the spite killing reported in the 2013 CAFCASS report, then there could be 6 such spite killings by mothers in this period.
Rather than edit the original post, which has been widely copied elsewhere, I have opted for a re-post. Changes from the original are in blue text (mostly Section 10.2 and additional conclusions). The additional case does not significantly affect the overall statistics. Its significance lies in the increasing evidence that the particularly distressing phenomenon of ‘family annihilation’ is not just a male specialty.
Rather than edit the original post, which has been widely copied elsewhere, I have opted for a re-post. Changes from the original are in blue text (mostly Section 10.2 and additional conclusions). The additional case does not significantly affect the overall statistics. Its significance lies in the increasing evidence that the particularly distressing phenomenon of ‘family annihilation’ is not just a male specialty.