The UK has just experienced the horror of its first mass shooting in decades. The first indications are that Jake Davison killed his family before turning the gun on himself.

What drives some men – and it is mainly men – to murder their families? The motivation for familicide is only partly understood but seems to be linked to a ‘loss of control over masculine domains’, even where there is no prior evidence of domestic abuse. Detective Jacque Morrell takes reporter Simon Ford on a disturbing journey into the dark side of gender identity, where lives unravel with catastrophic and unimaginable consequences.

The Six O’clock Knock is a Psycho Killer production.

Transcript
[Music] this podcast contains descriptions of death and violence that some listeners may find upsetting. Hello and welcome to episode three of the Six O’clock Knock, the true-crime podcast that takes a fresh look at murder the Six O’clock Knock is presented by me Simon Ford and former major crime detective Jacques Morrell in our previous episodes we looked at some unsolved British cases from the 1940s and the 1960s and you asked for our analysis of some more recent cases these are tragically all detected cases that we're going to talk about now there's no mystery associated with them but they do illustrate our topic and the topic is familicide [Music] we started looking at a case from 1993 where a father inexplicably killed his grown-up daughter and this made us look at other cases and how we as a society deal with the really difficult topic of murder within the family so murder in the family is termed familicide right is this something that you dealt with in your police career quite a lot or is it unusual well no unfortunately yes on a number of occasions we in the police never use the Latin terminology though each case that came before us was different you know I can remember them all I’ve included a reference to one of them in this episode too but looking back I think it's the family secrets and the what ifs that make these cases so intensely tragic it's bad enough having a family member violently killed don't get me wrong but uh when it's done by someone within the family when the killer is someone who was supposed to care for them it becomes so inexplicable and it's no surprise I suppose in most of these cases they never explain their actions so we started looking at these familiar side cases and we came across a recent one in Australia and it's a stark reminder that familiar sides occur in every society across the world this first case involves Camp Hill in Queensland in Australia which is a pleasant residential suburb of Brisbane and the houses are spacious and the roads are lined with trees and grass verges and in this lovely setting an unimaginable tragedy took place on the morning of Wednesday the 19th of February 2020 what happened in Camp Hill will affect the community there for a long time at 8 25 am during the school run emergency services received a number of calls to an incident on a quiet suburban street as with all incidents that take place in full view of the public numerous calls are made by people who witness things differently often calls are made from people who are passing by who may be confused or unsure about what's happening they just know that they need to call the emergency services in this incident there was a mention of an explosion then another of a fire involving a vehicle it was even a report that there'd been a road traffic collision so when the emergency crews arrived they found a car on fire a woman with severe burns and a man with fatal stab wounds once the fire had been extinguished those at the scene discovered the really horrible reality of the situation on the back seat of the car were the remains of not one but of three kids they were all under 10 years of age and they'd been burned alive in what had been a ferocious fire this was a chaotic scene but the officer in charge began to understand what had happened the woman had been driving her three children to school and her car was hit by another vehicle having come to rest the male driver of the other vehicle got out and approached the woman in her car then he poured petrol into it and immediately set it on fire causing what people had described as an explosion the woman despite being on fire herself managed to get out somehow run away as members of the public stopped and tried to help the man told them not to do anything before stabbing himself to death the woman was rushed to hospital she had 97 burns and died later that day the man involved was Rowan Baxter he killed his estranged wife HAnneah and their three children there'd been a long history of domestic abuse Jacques what do you make of that truly awful this was in broad daylight and in public the case gained national attention if not international the media frenzy was extensive and there was a lot of soul-searching in Australia as always there's a hope that something could be learnt from these kind of incidents something to prevent it from happening again but there was also some criticism of how the case was reported and there were calls for changes in the law there was reporting from theconversation.com who said too often when fathers kill their children the tendency is to frame it as a case of mental illness rather than gender driven violence now this is interesting because even the Aussie prime minister Scott Morrison he was criticized for sympathizing with Rowan Baxter’s state of mind rather than the family had been a victim of his violence and controlling behaviour and he chose to identify support next week for mental health services rather than pledging to tackle domestic violence in the country and this raises some questions did anyone at any time in their relationship suggest to Rowan Baxter that he sought help for his abusive and controlling behaviour towards his wife did he attempt to seek help immediately before committing this awful murder do we really expect people like Rowan Baxter to tell people about their intention to kill would it have been better if society had been able to change his behaviour at an early stage wow there are three four really big questions there aren't there so from the conversation.com the report goes on based on what we know so far in the killings HAnneah Clarke experienced an extreme form of coercive control by Rowan Baxter he'd control how she dressed and where she went Clarke also had a domestic violence order against him had recently left the relationship and had expressed fears her husband may kill her control and the imminent loss of it was central to Baxter’s actions against both Clarke and her children this is true in cases I worked on they may be all be different but it's that loss of control that drives these perpetrators to extreme violence yeah the headline in Australian media read it's time that coercive control was made illegal in Australia I think we're all

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