A five-year-old boy told his father ‘you make mummy die’, after his mother hanged herself following a relentless campaign of domestic abuse.
She died by suicide last year following three years in which the father had threatened her with a knife, punched her in the face, threatened to kill himself and threatened to tell social services to take her children away.
Her three children were found malnourished, with dirty feet and covered in potential bed bug bites as her declining mental health amid the horrific abuse meant she could not take care of them.
Campaigners have called for domestic abusers to be held accountable if their victims are driven to suicide, after the tragic case of Kiena Dawes who took her own life on July 22 2022 and left a note behind blaming her fiance’s campaign of terror. Ryan Wellings, 30, was cleared of manslaughter but jailed for six years over assault and coercive and controlling behaviour.
In the year to the end of March 2023, police figures showed domestic abuse-related deaths classed as suspected suicide were more common than killings by a current or ex-partner. There were 242 domestic abuse-related deaths in England and Wales, of which 93 were suspected suicides.
The latest case was revealed during a family court hearing in which the Royal Borough of Windsor & Maidenhead council asked a judge to permanently take the children away from the care of the father, who is currently in prison awaiting trial for serious offences and cannot be named to protect the anonymity of the children.
The court heard that, after the parents had separated in 2021, the father had turned up at the family home and threatened the mother with a knife while their three children were present.
Reading family court (pictured) heard the mother died by suicide last year following three years in which the father had threatened her with a knife, punched her in the face, threatened to kill himself and threatened to tell social services to take her children away
Campaigners have called for domestic abusers to be held accountable if their victims are driven to suicide, after the tragic case of Kiena Dawes who took her own life on July 22 2022 and left a note behind blaming her fiance Ryan Wellings’ campaign of terror
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Despite a domestic violence protection order having been served on the father, he returned to the house when intoxicated and punched the mother in the face, leaving her with a black eye, again with the children in the home.
The father was charged with assault, but the case against him collapsed when the mother failed to attend court to give evidence.
But the mother did co-operate in obtaining a non-molestation order against the father in 2022, which he was convicted of breaching when he turned up at the mother’s flat drunk.
Reading family court heard he then climbed to the balcony and threatened to jump off, while the children were present and awake, before police arrived and arrested him for harassment.
Ella Shaw, a barrister representing the council, wrote: ‘The father was intoxicated and he was knocking on the door asking for water. He was said to have woken one of the boys. It is evident that the children would have been put at risk of emotional harm by the incident.
‘The father accepts he would threaten to take his own life and threatened to tell children’s services to remove the children. Even if the threats to remove were said over the telephone, the children were likely to have been in their mother’s care at the time and witnessed her distress.’
‘In addition, there are numerous other police reports due to call outs to the home with the mother alleging the father was often verbally and physically abusive whilst intoxicated.’
Judge Emma Nott said that, by 2023, concerns started to be raised about the welfare of the children ‘in the context of the Mother’s declining mental health and the Father continuing to harass and threaten her by attending the family home on numerous occasions’.
‘The three children were observed to be malnourished, dirty and covered in small red marks which turned out to be bites from bed bugs’, Judge Nott said.
The latest case was revealed during a family court hearing in which the Royal Borough of Windsor & Maidenhead council (pictured) asked a judge to permanently take the children away from the care of the father, who is currently in prison awaiting trial for serious offences and cannot be named to protect the anonymity of the children
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‘Their hair was unwashed, the soles of their feet dirty; they were all still using dummies. The Mother was unable to manage the children’s behaviour. The home environment was reported as incredibly untidy and unclean. Few toys were observed.’
Amid ‘escalating concerns about the children’s living conditions’, the children were removed from the mother’s care and placed into foster care. Six weeks later, the mother took her own life.
Judge Nott said the boys, particularly the younger of the two, ‘seemed to associate their father with their mother’s death’. During a contact session with the father, that boy had told him ‘daddy you punch mummy and make mummy die’, the court heard.
A child psychologist said the older boy ‘showed a sudden and extreme fear response when he was asked about his father, which was unusual’. The little girl was initially very reluctant to attend contact, and on some occasions refused to enter the contact centre, the court heard.
Despite this the father demanded in court that he be allowed to care for all three children with the help of his mother at some time in the future when he is released from prison, claiming he would address his anger management and alcohol issues.
Judge Nott said: ‘I find that the chances of the father being able to consistently remain abstinent from alcohol, to manage his anger, and to begin and maintain a prosocial lifestyle within the next months or years are vanishingly small.’
She approved the local authority’s plan for parental responsibility of the girl to be stripped from the father and for her to be adopted. But said the boys were so traumatised that they were not realistic candidates for adoption, so ordered that they be placed in long-term foster care until they become adults.
The father – appearing by video link from HMP Bullingdon – told the court through a translator that he would seek to appeal the decision.
- For confidential support, call Samaritans on 116 123, visit samaritans.org or visit thecalmzone.net/get-support
