Category Archives: domestic violence

IMD’23 and Invisible Dead Men 2.0

International Men’s Day, 19 November 2023

If you are not doing anything else to mark International Men’s Day, there is a simple thing you can do which will take seconds: sign the petition calling for a Minister For Men.

The top themes for IMD 2023 are,

  • Making a positive difference to the wellbeing and lives of men and boys
  • Raising awareness and/or funds for charities supporting men and boys’ wellbeing
  • Promoting a positive conversation about men, manhood and masculinity

On the charity thing, there are more male-friendly charities in the UK than you might have realised, see here (always remembering that “male-friendly” does not mean “female-unfriendly”, as those who would divide us assert).

If you are still at a loose end, other than reading the rest of this article you could check out today’s edition of the Male Psychology magazine, e.g., this piece.

For my contribution I thought I’d emulate Jess Phillips. Every international women’s day she reads out in Parliament a list of female victims of partner homicide. I’m sure her omission of the male victims must be just an accidental oversight. To save her the trouble of finding them (her usual sources will not have done so) I have provided a list below. Perhaps she could read them out in the debate for International Men’s Day, which is scheduled for Tuesday 21st Nov’23, 9:30.

I jest, of course. I’m not in favour of such public readings, by anyone anywhere. It only promotes the nasty flavour of some sort of unholy competition. The number of women directly killed by male partners is undoubtedly larger than that in the reverse sense. So if there were such a grim competitive game, it is conceded. (Do note the word directly, and see below).

No, my interest in compiling a list goes back to the first time I did so, nearly seven years ago. The reason is that, when it comes to male victims, there is a suspicion in some quarters that, somehow, the statistics are misleading; that men dying just isn’t the same as women dying. I don’t need to labour for this audience how that perception arises – through the empathy gap or gamma bias. It becomes harder to deny when specific cases are identified, and especially when one reads the case histories.

Ah, but the usual culprits will opine, women only kill their male partners when they have been driven to it by years of abuse. Well, there are such cases, though I suspect the courts may not always discriminate between mutual partner abuse (which, let us not forget, is the most common sort) and the cases of women-only victimisation. However, in many cases the courts DO identify mutual abuse. Moreover, and this is what certain parties are most keen to keep submerged, there are many cases where the man has been subject to persistent abuse by his female partner, and his eventual death is the result of its, almost inevitable, escalation. In other words, exactly the sort of case which rightly excites so much ire when the sexes are the other way around.

Below I list just the names and the manner of the killing involved in the partner homicides of men by women. (The method I used for searching means I did not pick up men killed by gay partners). I found 168 cases between 2011 and November 2023 (with a handful earlier).

For the period 2011 to 2016 you can find my brief case histories for each killing here.

For the period 2017 to present (November 2023) you can find the case histories here.

Invisible Dead Men 2.0

The list below relates to women who killed their male partners. I also record, in a list that follows the main list, (i) cases of attempted murder of a man by his female partner, and, (ii) lesbian or bisexual women who killed their female partners.

I do not include other domestic homicides. I found many cases of women who killed their mothers, or their fathers, or their sisters or brothers, or their grandmothers or grandfathers, but these are not included.

Cases of women killing other people, including children, are omitted. (There are many).

All cases of death due to careless/reckless driving are omitted. (There are many).

I also did not include cases where a jealous woman, rather than killing her partner, killed the female love rival. I noted several of these.

The issue of what constitutes being a “partner” is fraught. Before the mid-20th century, this could be identified with “spouse” as the prevalence of partners living together without being married was low. Obviously, this will no longer serve. Indeed, in most cases the partners listed below were not married. In some cases it is clear: if reports use the term “partner” or “boyfriend”, etc. In other cases I have taken a sexual involvement to be sufficient, or where the couple were living together, even without a known sexual involvement if the woman was financially dependent on the man (which, in the cases below, sometimes means “leeching off him”). However, living together alone would not be sufficient without those other qualifiers, thus excluding lodgers, etc.

This is a list of those convicted. There may well be others who were not convicted, or even discovered.

There are many cases where the killing was instigated by the female partner but she got one or more men to assist in carrying out the deed. I have only been able to capture those cases where the woman was convicted as well as the man/men. There may be other cases where a woman’s “commissioning hand” failed to be identified and therefore appear in reports to be merely “man kills man” cases.

This is a list of direct killings which resulted in homicide trials. Hence, suicides resulting from partner abuse, including suicides resulting from a fathers’ estrangement from his children by belligerent actions by the mother, are not included as I have no means of identifying them. This is a major omission because the total incidence of male suicide per year is massively greater than their deaths by direct partner homicide, by a factor of order 150 to 200 or so. Consequently, any sizeable proportion of these suicides which result from domestic abuse or parental alienation has the potential to completely swamp the direct partner homicide deaths. In fact, I can state that this must definitely be the case. But reliable statistics are not known. Domestic abuse induced suicides have become topical of late, but you can be sure that the usual suspects will only be presenting half the story.

The date stated in the list refers to the date of conviction, not the date of the killing. The latter will be one or two years earlier in most cases, and sometimes many years earlier. The ages of the victim are at death, obviously, whereas the age of the culprit is at the time of the trial unless otherwise stated.

Finally, the list will not be complete. It is merely what I found, which is ultimately reliant on news reports.

So, for the period 2011 to 2023, here is the list of 168 male victims of homicide by their female partners (sometimes with others), plus 19 attempted murders of men by women (or soliciting for a murder) and 7 lesbian homicides of female partners by women. Recall the case histories can be read here and here.

  1. 2023: Rees Howarth stabbed to death.
  2. 2023: Kasey Anderson, 24, stabbed to death.
  3. 2023 Dylan Bacon, 39, stabbed to death.
  4. 2023: Paul Hanson, 54, stabbed to death.
  5. 2023: Saqib Hussain, 21, and Hashim Ijazuddin, 21, car rammed into tree.
  6. 2023: Paul Wagland, 52, stabbed to death.
  7. 2023: Liam Smith, 38, shot dead.
  8. 2023: Vishal Gohel death by blunt instrument.
  9. 2023: Samuel Mayo, 34, stabbed to death.
  10. 2023: Andrew Smith, 70, strangled to death.
  11. 2023: Jonathan Gibbons, 50, stabbed to death.
  12. 2023: Kevin Caster, 43, stamped to death and drug overdose.
  13. 2023: Tai Jordan O’Donnell, 19, stabbed to death.
  14. 2023: Frankie Fitzgerald, 25, throat cut and stabbed.
  15. 2023: Thomas Campbell, 38, beaten, scalded and stabbed.
  16. 2023: Saul Murray stabbed to death.
  17. 2022 Steven Davies, 39, stabbed to death.
  18. 2022: Keith Green, 40, stabbed to death.
  19. 2022: Giovanni Wallace, 29, stabbed to death.
  20. 2022: Gary Morgan, 36, stabbed to death.
  21. 2022: Bradley Lewis, 22, stabbed to death.
  22. 2022: Anthony Dunn, 81, smothered.
  23. 2022: Paul Searing, 57, stabbed to death.
  24. 2022: Matthew Wormleighton, 45, stabbed to death.
  25. 2022: Mohammed Mukhtar, 53, bound and strangled.
  26. 2022 Nigel Johnson, 55, stabbed to death.
  27. 2022 Christopher Higgs, 21, stabbed to death,
  28. 2022: Paul Fletcher, 31, stabbed to death.
  29. 2022: Oliver O’Toole, 31, stabbed to death.
  30. 2021: Adam Kroliowski, 32, stabbed to death.
  31. 2021: Nigel Chapman, 62, stabbed to death.
  32. 2021: David Jackson, 78, stabbed to death.
  33. 2021: William Middleton, 38, stabbed to death.
  34. 2021: Lee McKnight, 26, beaten, tortured and drowned.
  35. 2021: Michael Baines, 80, scalded with boiling sugar water, dying of severe burns.
  36. 2021: Warren Glover beaten to death.
  37. 2021: Joe Pooley, 22, drowned.
  38. 2021: Piotr Lacheta, 55, kicked and stamped to death.
  39. 2021: Raymond Cullen, 55, blunt instrument to head.
  40. 2020: Mark Fisher, 33, stabbed to death.
  41. 2020: Kieran Brown, 18, stabbed to death.
  42. 2020: Zygimantas Kromelys, 26, stabbed to death.
  43. 2020: Nigel Wright, 64, kicked to death.
  44. 2020: Wayne Coventry, 36, stabbed to death.
  45. 2020: Craig Morse, 33, stabbed to death.
  46. 2020: Ronald Portz, 30, stabbed to death.
  47. 2020: Paul Tong, 54, beaten to death.
  48. 2020: Giedrius Juskaukas, 42, stabbed to death.
  49. 2020: John Carroll, 52, stabbed to death.
  50. 2019: John Robinson, 37, stabbed to death.
  51. 2019: William Taylor, 69, strangulation/suffocation.
  52. 2019: Paul Taylor, 45, stabbed to death.
  53. 2019: Gary Cunningham, 29, stabbed to death.
  54. 2019: Paul Gillet, 54, beaten to death.
  55. 2019: John Maclean, 35, stabbed to death.
  56. 2019: Steven Donaldson, 27, severance of spinal cord with machete.
  57. 2019: Atakan Atay stabbed to death.
  58. 2019: Kanagusabi Ramanathan, 76, beaten to death.
  59. 2019: Kevin Nix, thrown from a car.
  60. 2019: Martin Welsh stabbed to death.
  61. 2019: James Field, stabbed to death.
  62. 2019: Jack Delany stabbed to death.
  63. 2019: Filip Jaskiewicz stabbed to death.
  64. 2019: Alan Grayson, 85, stabbed to death.
  65. 2019: Stephen Grant, 49, stabbed to death.
  66. 2019: Haider Hayat, beaten and throat cut.
  67. 2019: Mark Evans, 54, stabbed to death.
  68.  2019: Alan Cowie, 65, Asphyxiated by standing on throat.
  69. 2018: Conner Cowper, 18, stabbed to death.
  70. 2018: Raul Chiriac, 26, stabbed to death.
  71. 2018: Christopher Pearson, 39, stabbed to death.
  72. 2018: Khalid Safi, 18, stabbed to death.
  73. 2018: Neal Jex, 52, stabbed to death.
  74. 2018: Keith Robinson, 59, arson causing petrol vapour explosion.
  75. 2018: Kai Gareth Prothero, 47, stabbed to death.
  76. 2018: Philip Rolph, 65, stabbed to death.
  77. 2018: Paul Lavelle, 50, cut to face with sharp implement.
  78. 2017: Matthew Birkinshaw, encouraged suicide.
  79. 2017: Pietro Sanna, 23, stabbed to death.
  80. 2017: Man Limbu, 75, strangled to death.
  81. 2017: Mark Shaw, 29, stabbed to death.
  82. 2017: Henry Wilson, 70, smothered to death.
  83. 2017: John Poole, 50, stabbed to death.
  84. 2017: Mohammed Yousaf, 65, throat cut and beaten.
  85. 2017: Derek Taylor, 71, struck with hammer and axe.
  86. 2017: David Butterfield, 43, stabbed to death.
  87. 2017: Douglas Anderson stabbed to death.
  88. 2017: Jimmy Prout, tortured to death over a period of months.
  89. 2017: Anthony Culley, 56, stabbed to death.
  90. 2017: Romualds Baluls, 32, stabbed to death.
  91. 2017: Michael Beckwith, 44, beaten to death.
  92. 2017: Fred Payne, 78, killed in fire (arson).
  93. 2017: Alan Allan 34, stabbed to death.
  94. 2016: Jonathan Baines 44, stabbed to death.
  95. 2016: James Knight 26, stabbed to death.
  96. 2016: Jason Capper 45, stabbed to death.
  97. 2016: Jolyon Wray 46, stabbed to death.
  98. 2016: Tanveer Iqbal 33, strangled to death.
  99. 2016: Karl Bloxham 39, stabbed to death.
  100. 2016: Shenol Erol Ali 32, stabbed to death.
  101. 2016: Mark Hopes 45, beaten to death.
  102. 2016: Stephen Burton 50, stabbed to death.
  103. 2016: Alexander Duncan 59, stabbed to death.
  104. 2016: Glyn Evans 58, stabbed to death.
  105. 2016: David Edwards 51, stabbed to death.
  106. 2016: Lee Gillespie 26, stabbed to death.
  107. 2016: Norasab Hussain 33, stabbed to death.
  108. 2016: Damon Searson 23, stabbed to death.
  109. 2016: Marc Hastings 43, stabbed to death.
  110. 2015: Phillip Nicholson 22, stabbed to death.
  111. 2015: Richard Brown 47 and Sophia Christopher, 4, stabbed to death.
  112. 2015: Louis Spires 68, suffocated to death.
  113. 2015: vDavid Butterworth 38, stabbed to death.
  114. 2015: Graham White 38, beaten to death.
  115. 2015: Norman Bruce 64, stamped to death.
  116. 2015: Peter Hedley 49, beaten to death.
  117. 2015: Kyle Farrell 21, stabbed to death.
  118. 2015: Robert Dobinson 33, stabbed to death.
  119. 2015: Mark Cannon 44, stabbed to death.
  120. 2015: Ashley Meadowcroft 18, stabbed to death.
  121. 2015: Jamie Belshaw 36, stabbed to death.
  122. 2014: Alan Easton, stabbed to death.
  123. 2014: Scott Blackwood 30, tortured to death.
  124. 2014: John Fletcher 53, stabbed to death.
  125. 2014: Leonard Pollen 58, pills & wrist slashing.
  126. 2014: Geraint Hughes 60, stabbed to death.
  127. 2014: Geoffrey Carter 58, stabbed and then death by smoke inhalation following arson on  his flat.
  128. 2014: Majid Khan 15 and Anum Khan 8, (siblings of intended target Amjad Khan) killed by arson.
  129. 2014: Scott Dunne, stabbed to death.
  130. 2014: Peter Davegun 42, beaten to death.
  131. 2014: Barry Wilkins 71, stabbed to death.
  132. 2014: Czeslaw Zawadzki 58, stabbed to death.
  133. 2014: Martin Ackroyd 50, suffocated and strangled.
  134. 2013: Richard Sherratt 57, battered to death.
  135. 2013: Darren Orrett 32, stabbed to death.
  136. 2013: Peter McMahon 68, beaten to death.
  137. 2013: Nusrat Begum 36 (intended victim was Dawood Hussain) death in fire by arson.
  138. 2013: Lukasz Slaboszewski 31 stabbed to death.
  139. 2013: Kevin Lee 48, stabbed to death by same woman as above (she also killed non-partner John Chapman and attempted the murder of two other men chosen at random)
  140. 2013: Michael Kerr 30, stabbed to death.
  141. 2013: John Sampford 83, strangled to death.
  142. 2013: Michael Moss 48, beaten to death.
  143. 2013: Gareth Matthews 32, stabbed to death.
  144. 2009: Piotr Rafacz, stamped to death.
  145. 2012: Don Banfield 63 unknown method, convictions quashed on appeal.
  146. 2012: Lionel Morl 49, beaten to death.
  147. 2012: Winston Fernandez 69, beaten to death.
  148. 2012: Sean Martin 21, stabbed to death.
  149. 2012: Alan Kopp 30, stabbed to death.
  150. 2012: James Dornan 33, “glassed” leading to death.
  151. 2012: John Whyte 50, stabbed to death.
  152. 2012: Colin Ballinger 66, suffocated.
  153. 2012: Ian Graham 51, stabbed to death.
  154. 2012: Alan Clinch 48, stabbed to death.
  155. 2012: Darren Dempsey 37, stabbed to death.
  156. 2012: Karl Jones 37, blunt force beating.
  157. 2011: Kevin Carter 30, stabbed to death.
  158. 2011: Paul Norfolk 77, beaten to death with hammer.
  159. 2011: Shaun Corey 42, drugged, tied up, strangled and suffocated.
  160. 2011: Carlos Vilela 45, burnt alive with petrol (also crippling injuries to his daughters).
  161. 2011: Arunas Ramanauskas, stabbed to death.
  162. 2011: Martin Rusling 44, stabbed to death.
  163. 2011: Alan Meeking 49, deliberatley caused car crash.
  164. 2011: David Twigg, fire/smoke inhalation (locked in store cupboard by murderer who then lit a fire outside the door).
  165. 2010: Carl Everson,41, stabbing and stamped to death.
  166. 2004: Kenneth Quy killed by same woman as above six year before.
  167. 2010: Andrew Oates 44, beaten to death with hammer.
  168. Lakhvinder Cheema 39, poisoned to death.

In addition, here are 19 cases of attempted murder (or soliciting murder) by a female partner, where the man was lucky to survive, or a conspiracy to murder that did not come off…

  • Douglas Patrick 70, survived poisoning
  • Alexander Cameron, survived stabbing
  • Leng Hie Tiong 38, survived stabbing
  • Unnamed ex-husband, survived stabbing by ex-wife
  • Richard O’Rourke, survived stabbing
  • Stephen Watt 52, survived stabbing
  • Andrew Lyle, 47, Survived being drugged, doused in petrol and set alight
  • Carl Gallagher, Contract killing arranged by woman which didn’t come off
  • Paul Belton, 50, whose murder his female partner had solicited, but which the police intercepted
  • David Harrison, 59, whose female partner attempted to murder by stabbing after her long campaign of domestic violence against him
  • Unnamed boyfriend aged 25 who was the victim of an attempted murder by shooting by his ex partner and her new boyfriend
  • Unnamed ex-boyfriend was the subject of a botched murder attempt by his female partner, despite her written plan and careful preparation.
  • Rob Parkes, unharmed, but the subject of three attempts by his ex-wife to have him killed
  • Michael Coen, attempted murder by stabbing by his female partner (who also also stabbed his new partner)
  • Anonymous boy, 14, attempted murder by blunt instrument and stabbing by a 14 year old girl and her 14 year old boy accomplice
  • Ray Weatherall survived poisoning, shooting and electrocution/burning in an attempt to murder him by his wife and her lover
  • Iain Fullerton was repeatedly stabbed by his wife in an attempt to murder him
  • Jonathan Ingham was stabbed multiple times by his ex-partner in an attempt to murder him
  • Daniel Rotariu, 31, survived being doused in sulphuric acid as he slept by his girlfriend who was convicted of attempted murder

And finally, seven cases of lesbian killers, or would-be killers,

  • Wendy Thorpe 42, battered to death by her lesbian lover
  • Lisa Ann Quigley 30, stabbed to death by her lesbian lover
  • Leng Hie Tiong 38, survived stabbing by her lesbian lover
  • Another lesbian killed, not her partner, but another woman on behalf of her partner
  • A lesbian stabbed a female love rival, Sahkira Loseke, 22, through the heart after being accused of flirting with her girlfriend, Savannah Simpson.
  • A lesbian couple were jailed for the murder of Nadine Burden, 36
  • A lesbian, 32, committed serious and sustained violence on her 30 year old female partner, Lyndsey Vaux, over many years. Vaux ultimately died of the combined effects of 90 separate injuries.