The Sunday Mirror has launched a campaign to highlight the number of children murdered by their parents after a nine-month probe carried out by the tabloid.
The probe found that 63 children had been killed by their parents from 2004 to 2019.
The data collected confirmed that 52 of the 63 children were killed by fathers known to authorities for domestic abuse. A further seven children were killed by both parents in cases where the fathers had similar histories.
All of the children who died had parents who were known to either police, social workers or family courts for being violent.
The investigation also revealed that family members often tried to warn authorities about the dangers but were ignored.
The “Save Kids from Violent Parents” campaign aims to ensure that parents and carers convicted of violent crimes, child abuse or sexual offences and known to the authorities do not have automatic access to their children.
The campaign is calling for an amendment to the Government’s domestic abuse bill which would make it harder for violent parents to have contact.
Shadow Home Office minister Carolyn Harris is set to table the amendment to the Government’s domestic abuse bill in response to the newspaper’s investigation.
Domestic violence charity Refuge is working in collaboration with the Sunday Mirror.
Chief executive Sandra Horley told the Sunday Mirror:
“Domestic abuse needs to be taken more seriously by family courts as children are paying for decisions around contact, sometimes with their lives. Ending unsafe contact and improving how family courts respond to domestic abuse is essential if we are to end this widespread problem.”
The Sunday Mirror’s campaign features three demands:
“1. A change in the law, which means anyone who has been convicted of violent crime, child abuse or sexual offences can’t have automatic, unsupervised access to their kids. The same rules would apply to those who’d had similar findings made against them in the civil courts.
The ban could only be overturned by a judge if the parent had undergone a thorough assessment by an independent expert proving they have been rehabilitated.
2. Mandatory, standardised training in domestic abuse for judges, social workers and any other professionals involved in child access arrangements.
We also want to see domestic abuse training for coroners overseeing domestic homicide inquests.
3. More State funding to support the hundreds of thousands of children in the UK affected by domestic abuse – including the 3,627 kids currently being supported by Refuge.
It is only with the right support, such as specialist therapy, that these children can recover from the trauma they have experienced.”
You can read more about the campaign here. (WARNING: The article contains details about child deaths).
Researching Reform 
this is great and our MP is involve – how on earth they are left at home – PROVIDED children are not taken into Care as the result of infuries sustained from othercauses and end up being adopted.
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I would be interested to know if this figure includes step-parents. If it does not, what are the figures for step-parents?
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I find the title & stance taken by this tabloid to be biased and misleading.
The birth parents.
Partners of the parents
Extended family
Foster carer’s
Special Guardians
Institutional carers
Are just some of the people involved in looking after children.
63 children killed over a period of 16 years but they were not all killed by their parents. Where is the breakdown of who actually killed the children?
In 2017 The Intercept published an article “Children are dying at alarming rates in foster care, and nobody is bothering to investigate”
There were 86 children who were killed over a 10 year period in the for-profit foster care Mentor network but only 13 investigations were conducted. The death rate was 42% higher than the norm. 70% of the children who died in their care died unexpectedly. It was cited that children were with parents that had history of substance abuse, or sent to carers convicted of kidnapping or caretakers of previously failed foster placements.
Where are the UK statistics of kids being killed by other carers & not the parents?
It was noted that kids are being taken from their homes by state agencies & judges at the first sign of trouble, reasoning it was deemed safer but when tragedy struck while the child was in care it went unnoticed.
No child should die at the hands of ANY carer. Parents are demonised in the UK & more children are being taken into care than at any other time but if a child is injured intentionally or abused or murdered then we should have statistics that show exactly where it is happening & by whom.
The full article can be found on the intercept website.
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1. A change in the law, which means anyone who has been convicted of violent crime, child abuse or sexual offences can’t have automatic, unsupervised access to their kids. The same rules would apply to those who’d had similar findings made against them in the civil courts.
The above would be a very bad law
A violent criminal who robbed banks before going to prison should not be denied access to children when he comes out,Someone who is violent to adults is not necessarily violent to children and someone who gets in a fight in a pub when aged 19 should not have access to his/her child refused ten years later!
10,000 children “in care” go missing every year but how many of them are murdered or enslaved nobody knows.As Dana above points out we should be told how many kids in care are murdered or severely injured every year ;I reckon the percentage of deaths or injuries is a lot higher for kids in care than for kids with parents;
State Care is not the answer to abuse as too often it is the CAUSE of it !
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It should be noted that killings are not just restricted to being in care but also when kids leave care.
The Fostering Network through FOI found 90 people who left care in the UK between 2012-2016 died in the years when they would have turned 19,20,21 years of age. Care leavers make up 1% of the population but make up around 7% of the deaths.
Whist the Fostering Network’s reason was to campaign for young adults “Staying Put” to make kids transitioning out of care easier they clearly have a vested interest.
Other statistics of how many young people died from the care system over a 10, 15, 20 year period would have been helpful to know.
Also once a looked after child has “Stayed put” was there a difference in the number of deaths. Did it help the kids, not just from not being kicked out of care when the money dried up but were less people dying?
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Confusingly there are different statistics published as additional tables for Looked After Children who have left care through adoptions, Special Guardianship Orders (SGO) or child arrangements order (CAO) They are not included in Outcomes for children looked after by local authorities 2016 publication.
The first time was in 2015 labelled as “Experimental Statistics” as they are relatively new with only partial coverage & don’t meet the required quality standards, necessary to be designated National Statistics.
Info from Gov.UK.
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