Offenders who kill their current or ex-partner face spending an extra 10 years behind bars, with a new minimum sentence of 25 years in England and Wales, under plans announced by David Lammy.
The increase, announced by the justice secretary on Monday, comes after a seven-year campaign by mothers of victims for a change in the minimum sentence for domestic murder.
Where a weapon is taken to the scene with intent, the starting point for murders is a 25-year sentence. But under the current law most domestic murders have a 15-year sentencing starting point, because they take place in the home with a weapon most likely already at the scene.
Lammy, the deputy prime minister, said: “For centuries, the law failed to protect women from violence at the hands of their partner – whether from marital rape or from abuse behind closed doors. Whilst we’ve made significant progress, we need to continue righting these wrongs.
“This change closes a long overdue gap and will ensure those who murder their partner face sentences that better reflect the devastating harm they cause. I pay tribute to Carole Gould, Julie Devey and Elaine Newborough whose courageous campaign will help future mothers, daughters and wives get the justice they deserve.”
Sixth-form student Ellie Gould, 17, was murdered by her ex-boyfriend, Thomas Griffiths, on 3 May 2019. Quantitative trading analyst Poppy Devey-Waterhouse, 24, was murdered by her ex-boyfriend, Joe Atkinson, on 14 December 2018. Megan Newborough, was murdered by her boyfriend, Ross McCullam, on 6 August 2021.
In a statement issued by the charity Killed Women on behalf of the three murdered women’s mothers, they thanked Lammy, adding: “At last, women’s lives are being valued as highly as men’s. Since around 70% of victims of homicide in the home are women, it has long been unjust that those who murder them routinely receive substantially lighter sentences simply because the murder weapon, such as a kitchen knife, was already there, rather than brought to the scene.
“What drove us was knowing, categorically, that the current sentencing guidelines are wrong. Our daughters’ lives were taken in brutal ways as other women are killed every week inside their home, the place they were entitled to feel safe.”
The Guardian’s killed women count campaign highlighted the extent of femicide, recording 80 women killed in the UK in 2024.
The change, which is subject to consultation with the sentencing council, forms part of the government’s commitment to halve violence against women and girls, and ensure swifter justice for victims and their families. More than a fifth of all murders are domestic, and overwhelmingly women are the victims.
The increase in sentencing was welcomed by Refuge and the domestic abuse commissioner, Dame Nicole Jacobs. But Refuge called on the government to review partial defences which perpetrators use to obtain a lesser conviction of manslaughter rather than murder and Jacobs expressed disappointment that it would not apply to victims killed by a family member. “It’s no less heinous a crime when a parent is killed by their child or someone is a victim of so-called ‘honour’-based abuse by a relative,” she said.
Mark Day, deputy director of the Prison Reform Trust, said Lammy’s announcement had pre-empted the findings of the Law Commission’s detailed review of homicide offences, warning that it would add to pressure on a “prison system still struggling to cope with rising prison numbers, fuelled largely by the growth in sentence lengths for some of the most serious offences”.
The existing 15-year starting point will still apply where a victim of domestic abuse kills their abuser.
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