Domestic link to almost nine in 10 unlawful killings of women and girls, Garda review finds

Most women who are killed or sexually attacked are targeted by people they know and within a domestic violence setting, new research by the Garda has shown.

The new data, described as a “milestone” in Irish policing, reveals almost nine out of 10 women and girls who were murdered or unlawfully killed, lost their lives at the hands of perpetrators, usually male, that they knew.

Furthermore, 98 per cent of all suspects in sexual crimes recorded by the Garda last year were male and 2 per cent of perpetrators were female. Some 81 per cent of sex crime victims were female and 19 per cent were male.

The Domestic, Sexual and Gender-based Violence report published by the Garda on Friday also shows 60 per cent of victims of sexual crimes are children.

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The new data reveals, for the first time in the State, the extent of gender-based violence. It has been compiled and published after new crime recording mechanisms were introduced last year to capture the relationship between the victim of a violent crime and the person accused of that offence.

Some 84 per cent of women and girls, and 61 per cent of men and boys, who die by homicide knew their killer. In the years since 2013 males accounted for the majority, 79 per cent, of homicide victims in the Republic and females 21 per cent. In 2019-2021 some 14 per cent of all victims of threats to murder or assaults and related offences were children. Just over one in 10 homicide victims — 11 per cent — were children in the three-year period to the end of last year.

Some 53 per cent of sex crimes recorded last year had a “relationship type” with the suspect that pointed to the offences being domestic in nature. The Garda has also found that most killings and sexual crimes take place in a residential setting; 70 per cent for sex crimes and 56 per cent for murders and other unlawful killings.

Det Chief Supt Colm Noonan, of the Garda National Protective Services Bureau, said the number of sexual crimes being recorded was increasing in recent years because victims were more willing to come forward. He also believed gardaí were better able to record and capture those offences, including the relationship between the victim and perpetrator, and how an attack occurred.

“That allows is to understand what is happening behind close doors and I think that’s the key; the close-door aspect of these types of crimes is shifting into the open. And people are more trusting and more confident to contact An Garda Síochána and seek our assistance,” he said.

Det Chief Supt Noonan said the research findings confirmed what gardaí had believed; that women victims were likely to be killed or abused in a residential setting. However, the findings would allow the Garda to “tailor our response”, especially when it came to training frontline gardaí to deal with the specific nature of sexual, and other domestic, crimes.

Sara Parsons, one of the leaders of the Garda Analysis Service that compiled the report, said there was a clear spike in domestic crimes during the pandemic. She said it was “striking” that reports of domestic violence had remained high in the period since restrictions were eased.

Gardaí respond to 120-150 reports of domestic violence every day across the Republic. In the year to date some 37,435 domestic violence incidents had been responded to, an increase of 9 per cent on last year.

Last year the Garda installed a new facility on its PULSE computerised crime database to record the nature of the relationship, if any, between a victim and the suspected attacker. Gardaí have used the information accrued on the PULSE system since last year as the basis for the new research report. In cases of murder, manslaughter and infanticide — all of which are relatively few in the Republic — manual searches of each case have been conducted as far back as 2013.

Last year domestic violence killings — of men, women, girls and boys — for the first time since 2013 accounted for more than half of the murder, manslaughter and infanticide cases in the Republic; 13 of the 25 cases recorded. However, Garda sources pointed out gangland killings and street killings, which were often alcohol fuelled, had plummeted last year due to Covid-19 restrictions, adding that this had skewed the 2021 data and was unlikely to become a lasting trend.

The new research also identified an increase of 399 per cent in domestic abuse motivations for sexual offences in 2020-2021. However, sources said this was also an anomaly due to the new mechanism introduced to PULSE last year for recording relationships between victims and perpetrators. Before the new recording mechanism was introduced, the nature of the relationship between victim and suspect was only recorded in a smaller number of cases, and done so informally, as it was not a requirement.