‘Just Say Goodbye’ (January 2013 online edition)

‘Just Say Goodbye’While the focus of this discussion paper is on filicides that occur in thecontext of separation, it was not possible to determine which cases in theNHMP database involved the parents’ separation. The data therefore includesall types of filicide.Data was provided in aggregated tables and analysed by DVRCV. Theanalysis was then reviewed by the AIC. Data tables relating to the analysis areprovided in Appendix 1.The information held in the NHMP database is primarily obtained frompolice offence reports, provided to the AIC by police departments in each stateand territory in Australia annually. Some terms are defined by the AIC andwhere possible those definitions are provided.Incidence of filicideIn the 11-year period July 1997 to June 2008, 468 children under 18 years of agewere killed in a homicide incident in Australia. 16 The majority of these children(62 per cent) were killed by their parents.Approximately 27 children are killed by their parents 17 each year in Australia.Between July 1997 and June 2008, there were 239 incidents involving a childkilled by one or more of their parents 18 . These incidents involved a total of 291child victims (in 39 incidents there were multiple child victims).Gender of perpetratorsThe vast majority of filicide incidents during the period 1997 to 2008 involvedone parent (90 per cent) as a perpetrator. 19 In the remaining 10 per cent ofincidents, two parents were involved. Table 1 below shows that 110 filicideincidents were perpetrated by fathers/stepfathers 20 and 106 by mothers.Fathers/stepfathers were responsible for the death of 140 children and motherswere responsible for the death of 127 children. Fifty-two per cent of the childvictims of filicide were killed by fathers/stepfathers and 48 per cent by mothers.16 See Table A1 in Appendix 1.17 ‘Parents’ includes ‘custodial’ and ‘non-custodial’ parents and ‘step’ parents. These terms are not defined onthe police coding sheet. For the purposes of this paper, it is assumed that ‘custodial parent’ refers to a parentwho resides with the child; ‘non-custodial parent’ refers to a parent who does not reside with the child and‘step-parent’ refers to a non-biological parent who resides with the child.18 See Table A2 in Appendix 1.19 The data analysis provided in this chapter will primarily focus on the incidents involving one parent only,rather than incidents involving two parents, to enable gender comparisons in relation to perpetrators.20 The NHMP uses the term ‘step-parent’ which is also described elsewhere as ‘non-biological parent’ or‘social parent’.15