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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
National
Jessica Murray Social affairs correspondent

‘A real injustice’: mothers killed by their children is still a hidden issue in UK

Illustration of the silhouette of a woman sitting in a chair at a kitchen table
The Guardian’s Killed women count project identified at least seven cases of mothers alleged to have been killed by sons in 2024. Composite: Guardian

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.

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