Justice For Our Daughters
2025The Daily Mirror’s Justice For Our Daughters campaign launched calling for tougher sentences for domestic killers. Every three days in Britain, a woman is killed by a man, and more often than not, this happens inside the home.
In most circumstances, if an abuser murders a partner or family member inside with a weapon, they will get a life sentence with a sentencing starting point of 15 years, 10 years less than if they had killed the same person in the street.
The Mirror was determined to end this injustice. The title launched the campaign with a front-page appeal for members of the public to take part in the government’s murder sentencing consultation.
Alongside this, the Mirror ran the first of many interviews with the relatives of murdered women who had been let down by the justice system. These included Julie Devey, whose daughter Poppy was stabbed nearly 100 times by her boyfriend – who was only sentenced to 16 years and 2 months – and Carol Gould whose daughter Ellie was stabbed and strangled to death by her boyfriend, who received 12.5 years in prison.
The campaign was supported by Jess Phillips MP, Spice Girl Mel B, Hetti Nanton, chair of Refuge, Dame Cheri Blair, and the then shadow Home Secretary Yvette Cooper, among others. The Mirror also worked with the pressure group Killed Women, made up of bereaved family members. The stories were picked up by other publications, and the campaign was discussed widely in the broadcast media.
Then Prime Minister Rishi Sunak eventually pledged to change the law in June if he were to stay in power. The Mirror is now calling on the new government, many of whose members have been great supporters of the campaign, to follow suit. The Mirror’s Justice For Our Daughter campaign also called for domestic abuse experts in 999 call centres, and longer sentences for strangulation – a measure the Labour government is now introducing.
The campaign also demands that those who abuse someone to the point that they take their own life as a direct result to be charged with manslaughter. The Mirror interviewed grieving mum Sharon Holland at her home, whose daughter Chloe took her own life after being told to do so by her ex partner, and was harassed and abused to the point she felt there was no way out.
