British Nationals Murdered Abroad: Support for Families

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Monday 12th May 2025 Commons Chamber

[Mr Joshua Reynolds (Maidenhead) (LD)]

I am glad to be able to speak in the Adjournment today about an issue of painful neglect that affects 80 British families each year, yet remains largely hidden from public and parliamentary view. We have all said goodbye to a loved one at an airport, wishing them well for their holiday, or their time abroad for work or study. If any of us was to receive a phone call saying that our loved one had been murdered when they were in the UK, that phone call would be devastating enough, but to receive that phone call when a loved one is thousands of miles away—murdered across an ocean, in a country that speaks another language—is a whole different world of pain and confusion.

Every year, British citizens are killed in acts of violence abroad. In many cases, their families are left to deal with unimaginable grief for the loss of a loved one, all while faced with the full weight of an unfamiliar, bureaucratic and different system. They do that alone. They have to navigate foreign legal procedures, untranslated documents and distant court proceedings with patchy, inconsistent support from their Government—all at a time of trauma, vulnerability and mourning.

Tonight, I want to be a voice for those families, through the Murdered Abroad campaign, a group of bereaved relatives who have turned their grief into a powerful call for change. They are not asking for special treatment—in fact, they want the complete opposite. They are asking for fairness and compassion, and the kind of structured, statutory support that families receive when tragedy strikes on British soil.

In January this year, I met a family in Maidenhead, who discussed their story of their son’s murder in America in 2009. They managed to contact the consulate, but the time difference was tricky, and there was not much help for the family with communicating. After many calls, they realised they were not really getting anywhere, so they had to take matters into their own hands, even going so far as to arrange the repatriation of their son’s body in the absence of support from their Government.

When a British citizen is murdered abroad, their family is plunged not only into grief and shock, but into a crisis made worse by the overwhelming burden of having to navigate unfamiliar systems with a lack of support.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I commend the hon. Gentleman for securing this debate on a subject that is very important to many. Between 2010 and 2015, more than 250 British nationals were murdered abroad, in Pakistan, Tunisia, France and the United States, which he mentioned. We often see horror stories online—cases in which an individual has been found but not yet identified. Does he agree that, in the case of British nationals, there is more that the Foreign Office could do to ensure that all efforts are made to alert the family before any news is released to the media? Sometimes the media need to be sensitive.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jim Shannon]

The point I made to the hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mr Reynolds) was that families sometimes find out about these cases on social media or somewhere else. I would have thought that whenever the police in whatever country become aware that someone was a British citizen, they would immediately contact the embassy and make it aware of what had happened so that it could be the conduit. Could that be done? We have had a similar case in Northern Ireland, although I will not go into any details because it is an ongoing case. There is an important role for the consulate and the British embassy to play.

[Alex Davies-Jones]

The hon. Gentleman makes a valid point. It should be the appropriate protocol for the police to be informed first of an incident in a country, with the families informed by the police in that country or by the police in our country via Interpol, as I said. But, in today’s modern age, sadly that is not always the case. It is not fair to the families that they find out second or third hand. An appropriate protocol should be in place. That should be how it happens. Sadly, we know that is not always the case.

The Osman family did not receive, and did not know that they could receive, a trained family liaison officer in Wales, and they were largely ignored by Spanish police. When they visited Spain shortly afterwards, they had to describe the situation on a mobile phone using Google Translate—we have heard that about similar cases—and there was extensive miscommunication throughout the ordeal between the family and external authorities, costing valuable investigation time and prolonging their agony.

There were many other issues with obtaining Nathan’s case file and coroner’s report, which the family believe contain a number of discrepancies. No one should have to endure what they went through. Losing a young family member in such horrific circumstances is a pain that few of us can truly understand, and they were retraumatised through various errors and miscommunications.

In the pictures and videos shared with my team by the family, it is easy to see what a dedicated father Nathan was to his young children and how much he is still loved and missed every day. I thank Alannah, Lee, Liz and Jonathan for sharing Nathan’s story with me, and I thank hon. Members for sharing their stories with me this evening. I am sure the whole House will join me in sharing all our condolences with everyone impacted.