The thought of mothers being abused or killed by their own children – the people they have carried, cared for and nurtured since birth – is something of an underexamined and almost taboo issue in Britain.
There is a slowly growing body of research into why children under 18 use violent behaviour towards their parents. There is an even smaller body of research showing why adults – nearly all of them sons – do the same.
“It is still incredibly hidden, very taboo,” said Prof Rachel Condry, who along with Dr Caroline Miles has been researching violence towards parents for 15 years.
“When we started, practitioners and police officers knew about the problem and had to deal with it, but it wasn’t something that was named, or really talked about. Over the years it has become more of a familiar, known problem, but so much is still hidden.”
The Guardian’s Killed women count project, which documented every woman allegedly killed by a man in 2024, identified at least seven cases of mothers alleged to have been killed by their sons. A new Femicide Census report puts the figure at 173 over the last 15 years.
Some of the key drivers are clear. Issues around lack of housing, substance misuse and, most often of all, mental health problems are key factors behind many of the tragic stories of the women killed by their offspring.
A report on femicide in Merseyside found that 17% of all women killed by men between 2009 and 2023 were killed by their sons, most of whom had mental health problems.
“As children become adults, you see the impact of the unavailability of affordable housing, where older children end up back in the family home but with different power dynamics operating. Parents are also becoming older, they’re probably having more health difficulties and age-related vulnerabilities,” said Dr Victoria Baker, a senior lecturer in gender-based violence at Manchester Metropolitan University.
“With adult children, you’re also much more likely to have significant mental health difficulties coming into play. So it’s those issues that come together to create a bit of a perfect storm.”
Children and young people are increasingly experiencing mental health crises, with one in five in England suffering from problems such as anxiety or depression. The proportion of 25- to 34-year-olds still living with their parents has increased by more than a third in nearly two decades, according to the Institute for Fiscal Studies.
Prof Amanda Holt, the chair of criminology at the University of Roehampton who completed the first national analysis of parricide (the killing of a parent) in England and Wales, said a failure to consider parents as potential victims was leaving people vulnerable.
“There’s so little understanding around violence towards parents it’s harder for practitioners to know what the red flags are,” she said. “They tend to see parents as carers, not as potential victims. I think a lot of services are just thinking, thank God there’s someone for this person.”
Condry highlighted one case in which a man’s medical notes said he should never be left alone with female members of staff. “But nobody had questioned whether he should live on his own with his mother,” she said.
Data shows the perpetrators of parricide in the UK are overwhelmingly sons, not daughters. It also shows fathers and mothers have been killed by their children in roughly equal numbers in recent years, although when compared with female homicides overall, mothers are disproportionately victims.
Karen Ingala Smith, a cofounder of the Femicide Census, said sex played a key role in the killing of mothers. “We don’t see daughters killing parents in anything like the numbers of sons. This is about men’s violence against women.”
Women are more likely to be victims of “overkilling”, where their bodies are subjected to an extreme level of violence, and are also more likely to report non-fatal violence at the hands of their children.
“When mothers are killed, they tend to be older in age, and they tend to be very isolated, often caring for mentally ill sons,” said Condry. The killing of fathers is more frequently linked to childhood abuse.
Research has found that mothers are seen as a “safe space” for children to use violent behaviours. “They know that they are not going to leave them, they are going to be there for them, and they are not going to be violent back to them if they use these behaviours,” said Baker.
With grownup children remaining in or returning to the family home, mothers are again often the ones “providing support, typically either due to mental health difficulties or substance misuse, or a combination of the two”.
One of the main issues is still the shame and stigma associated with reporting the problem, with parents often reluctant to report their own son or daughter to police and struggling to find anywhere else to access support. With little focus in the media, parents often feel they are the only one experiencing such abuse.
“Over the years, hundreds of mothers have been killed by their sons with almost no attention to it,” said Condry. “There’s a real injustice that women, older and middle-aged women, who are in this situation are marginalised to the degree that nobody is asking questions and nobody is really telling their stories when they’re killed.”
In the UK, Samaritans can be contacted on 116 123 and the domestic abuse helpline is 0808 2000 247. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is on 13 11 14 and the national family violence counselling service is on 1800 737 732. In the US, the suicide prevention lifeline is 1-800-273-8255 and the domestic violence hotline is 1-800-799-SAFE (7233). Other international helplines can be found via www.befrienders.org
