Filicide overwhelmingly linked to male perpetrators who 'deeply believe their actions are justified', experts say

For most parents, losing a child is an unthinkable horror.

And yet, the grim likelihood presented by new data is that by year's end, about 20 Australian kids will be dead — because their parents decided to kill them. 

More than a quarter of those children will be Indigenous. 

It's the first time national figures for filicide have been available in the context of family violence, and Australia's National Research Organisation for Women's Safety (ANROWS) report released last week revealed an overwhelming pattern of gendered violence. 

The ANROWS study looked at 113 cases of filicide between 2010 and 2018 and found 76 per cent had an identifiable history of domestic and family violence.

The study found fathers who commit filicide were almost always the perpetrators of family violence, and mothers who went on to kill their children were usually victims of family violence. 

Sixty-eight per cent of these cases were murders committed by the child's father, compared with 32 per cent by the child's mother.

But experts say men who murder their children usually have different motivations from women who do so.

Spousal revenge and control

Hayley Boxall is a researcher at the Australian National University (ANU) whose focus includes family violence and intimate partner homicide.

She said spousal revenge and control is at the heart of male-perpetrated filicide.

"There's been a really consistent evidence base that we have which unpacks the role of control in lethal violence," she said.

According to Dr Boxall a relationship breakdown, custody issues or a change in family circumstances could signal to perpetrators a loss of control.

"We see that in some circumstances that either extends to include children. So, 'How dare she take the kids from me? I'm going to take the kids as well as her out of the picture,' as an ultimate form of revenge. Or, it could be that they kill the kids but not her."

Dr Boxall said this played out in 2018 when John Edwards murdered his 15-year-old son Jack and 13-year-old daughter Jennifer. The murders followed a lengthy family court battle with their mother.

"He deliberately killed the children but not her, as a way of making her suffer," she said.

Other factors at play

ANU PhD candidate Adelaide Bragias studies the gendered nature of domestic homicides and said previously filicide was seen as a women's crime linked to mental health issues.

"Generally speaking, a child is more at risk of filicide by their mother in their first year of life .. and usually that's because of severe mental illness … really severe depressive or psychotic symptoms," she said.

"As they get older it's their father that's more likely to kill them and usually our research is showing us that it is retaliatory or aggressive in nature."

Dr Boxall said other factors were often at play when women used violence, compared with when it was perpetrated by men.

"Generally what we see with women who kill their kids, it's a very different set of circumstances. It's less likely to be about control. It's less likely to be perpetrated in the context of domestic and family violence," she said.

"Oftentimes we see that it will occur in the context of, she's had significant mental health issues, particularly things like paranoid delusions where she becomes fixated on this idea of, 'I have to kill the children to protect the children'.

Dr Boxall said it's sometimes seen by mothers as the last line of defence in the presence of an abusive father.

"I've certainly reviewed cases where she killed the kids because she didn't see any other way out. Where in the context of the separation it might have been that he was granted custody, she felt like there was nothing else she could do and he was a very abusive person."

Ms Bragias said her research revealed male perpetrators of filicide had an incredibly strong sense of grievance, stemming from a belief they'd been victimised.

"We need to recognise the complexity of these grievances that they're experiencing, this deep sense of injustice or victimisation, even if we don't agree with them."

Ms Bragias said sometimes these acts of violence were also underpinned by a sense of loss, or injury.

Dr Boxall said situational stressors were similarly important for understanding patterns of abusive behaviour, but that the issue was bigger and more complex than any single trigger.

"We saw with the COVID-19 pandemic that financial stress, economic insecurity and social isolation … contributed to people experiencing intimate partner violence.

"There is enough evidence there to say, 'look, these factors do matter, but when we're thinking about lethal violence, we cannot divorce it from that broader context of entitlement, coercive control and gendered norms."

What is the answer?

Ms Bragias said the problem would not be solved by issuing domestic violence orders and making arrests.

She said a multi-pronged approach was needed to address male violence, given they commit the vast majority of filicides.

"There's incredible work going on … working with young boys and men and also young women about things like consent, safe relationships," she said.

However, she argued collaborative intervention was needed for high-risk perpetrators.

"We also need to discuss where we are with secondary and tertiary prevention, especially engaging with people who are so far along that continuum of violence that a conversation with a mate about respect is not going to cut it," she said.

Ms Bragias said high-risk response teams, like those used in Queensland as part of the Not Now, Not Ever recommendations, had successfully brought multiple agencies together.

Family violence advocates say it has resulted in better identification of the issues and more support for victims.

"That's not a perfect answer to the problem, but in that case, we have mental health professionals attending alongside police."