News and Events

Research reveals numbers of potential child killers

20 August 2007

Research by two BU academics has looked at the potential numbers of child killers in the community.

Conducted by Professor Colin Pritchard and Tony Sayers, the research examined a decade of child homicides, focusing on those killed by people outside the immediate family.

They tied that in with the profile of the background of Ian Huntley, the man convicted of murdering Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman in Soham in 2002, to establish how many others like him live in the community and how many go on to kill.

Professor Pritchard said: “High-profile child murders lead parents to fear for their children’s safety, but this is often at variance with reality.

“Within-family assailants account for 85-90% of all child homicides, and the extra-family killer is rare.

“However those that did kill a child outside their own family were classed as Violent Multi Criminal Child Sex Abusers (VMCCSA) whose victims were all aged five and above. In addition to their sex crimes they also had multi-criminal records, with at least one previous conviction for violence.

“We calculated that among men aged 18 to 42 there are about 912 VMCCSA in the UK at any one time. Based upon the average of the last five-year child homicides, there was an annual average of 16 confirmed murders whose killers were probably extra-family assailants, out of an average of 40 child homicides a year (1998-2002).

“Thus out of the potential 912 VMCCSA men, less than 2% went on to kill. These numbers are reassuringly small (the risk to any child of 5-14 is 0.00014% a year, or ten times less than being killed on the road).

“While the vast majority of these potential assailants did not kill, comparatively they are extremely dangerous. If we considered VMCCSA as if they were a medical syndrome, like cancer, while far rarer than cancer in children, we calculated they had a 300 times higher death rate than in children who get cancer.

“While very rare, 0.0002% kill, they pose substantial risks to children. We need to consider what to do about them, and where the balance of safety should lie."

The study: Pritchard C & Sayers T : Exploring potential `extra-familial’ child homicide assailants in the UK and estimating their homicide rate: perception of risk – the need for debate; British Journal of Social Work 36: in press.