Domestic Abuse-related Deaths: NHS Prevention

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Tuesday 20th January 2026 Westminster Hall

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

It is always a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Sir John. I thank the hon. Member for Stroud (Dr Opher) for securing this debate, setting the scene incredibly well and giving us all an opportunity to participate.

As always, I want to give a Northern Ireland perspective of what is happening. Unfortunately, the things happening in Northern Ireland are replicated, as shown in what other Members have said and what others will say after me. In some ways, things in Northern Ireland are even worse—the numbers of women being killed are at such a high level in proportion to the rest of the United Kingdom, and outpace what is happening elsewhere.

The Minister, who I am always pleased to see in her place, has a special interest in Northern Ireland, and because of that she will be aware of the stats, which are incredibly worrying. In Northern Ireland, the Police Service recorded almost 30,000 domestic abuse incidents in the 2024 to 2025 period, translating to roughly 85 incidents daily. Almost 18,500 of those became crimes, although many incidents do go unreported. Call volumes, particularly around Christmas, highlight a consistent challenge for victims seeking help. There are about 15 incidents and 10 crimes per 1,000 people, which puts the stats into perspective. Although that is a decrease on the previous year, those numbers are still incredibly jarring.

One of the worst times of the year, as we all know as elected representatives, is Christmas and the new year. There is a strain on relationships, whether it is a combination of financial and emotional pressures, or everything just building up at that time of year. The Police Service of Northern Ireland received 1,407 calls in the period from 20 December 2025 to 2 January 2026, seeing a peak of 116 reports on new year’s day. There is pressure on the PSNI back home, and on the police here, to respond to quite difficult issues. I know the Minister always tries to be responsive to our requests, so has she had the opportunity to speak to the relevant police in Northern Ireland, to get an idea of what they are doing and how we can help each other?

In June, we had the absolutely heartbreaking murder of a young mother of two, who was pregnant with her third child; the ripples are still felt in our community. Young Sarah Montgomery’s murder simply should not have happened, and more has to be done in those cases. Sarah was the 27th women to be murdered in Northern Ireland since 2020, and the level of domestic abuse calls indicate that this remains a central problem.

In Northern Ireland, health and social care is a very important partner in the domestic and sexual abuse strategy for 2024 to 2031, which designates domestic abuse as “everyone’s business”—and it is everyone’s business. Health settings are often the only safe and trusted environment where a victim can disclose abuse, as the hon. Member for Stroud mentioned. When a victim goes into a health setting, people run to support to them, and there is nobody looking over their shoulder or listening to what is going on, and they may have an opportunity to disclose what has happened. It is really important to have that strategy in place, and we have it in Northern Ireland.

I will underline the particularly worrying trends from the Christmas and new year period. At that time of year, accident and emergency units are under incredible pressure. Back home, we have had problems with hospital wait times and ambulances queued outside hospitals, and the domestic abuse issue is clearly in the middle of that.

Roughly 30% of domestic abuse starts during pregnancy, so midwives and health visitors are trained to conduct routine inquiry and ask about safety at home. They do that, and it has enabled the issue to be raised incredibly. To catch abuse early, we need to empower those workers to report any concerns and ensure that support is offered. It is essential that NHS departments work together, but the pressure on workers to fulfil their calls and do their paperwork is immense. So I believe that time must be factored in for staff to be able to smoothly report any suspicions. We must know that, in these awful cases, the Government and their Departments have done all that they could.

I want to be clear: murder by domestic abuse can never be the fault of anyone other than the perpetrator. However, in our communities we must all ask ourselves, “Was there something more that we could have done?” I support a UK-wide review by the Minister to ascertain how we can know that we have done all we can, to our utmost and even a bit more.