Opinion

My sister Valerie French-Kilroy was our warrior princess. Change the law to protect her children

When her husband was charged and convicted of her murder, his guardianship rights were not affected. So the man who killed their mother has a say in her children’s lives

Valerie French: in one Garda interview her killer said my sister’s last words were 'What about the boys?' Her purported last words are exactly the right question. Photograph: Courtesy of David French
David French
Sat Aug 03 2024 - 06:38

My sister Valerie was murdered by her husband more than five years ago on June 13th or 14th, 2019 at their home in Kilbree, Co Mayo.

For fear of upsetting the criminal trial I couldn’t use the word “murder” in public until Friday, July 26th, when the jury came back with their verdict: murder. Plain and simple.

So we are in a very different place now.

There is still an utterly terrifying black hole of silence where my sister Valerie used to be but at least we can talk more openly about it. Valerie was a wonderful person, in her own right and in many different roles. She was an occupational therapist working around Castlebar. She ran an Airbnb. She was a mother of three young children and the family’s main breadwinner. She had a mother in west Cork and four siblings, with whom she stayed in contact online and by cross-country travel. She had many friends here and in the UK where she had studied and worked.

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Valerie attracted universally positive reactions. Those at her funeral shared stories of how she had helped them. Some were in her professional role, such as when she’d gone beyond her role and got funding to secure a vulnerable man’s situation after his parents passed away. Some were personal friends whom she’d encouraged with confidence-building comments or by providing more direct guidance, such as commissioning someone to make her a leather belt as a pathway back to pursuing their craft.

Valerie could be relied on to brighten things up. This positivity and adaptability served her well at work. When elderly men in rural Kerry needed something to occupy their time, her solution was the culturally appropriate skill of basket weaving using willow. It made complete sense to the men, it was useful to others and their background equipped them with the necessary physical strength. She didn’t just recommend it, she learned it herself, bought the tools and, unfortunately for us now that she isn’t here to harvest it, she planted quite a lot of those large and fast-growing monster weeds.

Killing the mother of a child is child abuse. Society should protect children from their abusers

One of Valerie’s friends described her as a warrior princess and backed it up with a photo that had been taken of Valerie with her usual wide smile, a baby carrier repurposed as a quiver on her back with a small child in it and brandishing the large longbow she brought to archery practice in the woods. Another described Valerie as her “North Star”.

Valerie was a loving mother. She guarded her children fiercely, but Valerie’s guardianship died with her. At the funeral, one of her young children lovingly arranged handpicked daisies on his mother’s coffin which, due to her injuries, had to be closed. Picture a small boy wearing his best clothes holding a bunch of flowers and carefully lining them up, while a full church stands in silence.

Despite causing all this irreversible damage, his mother’s killer remains his and his siblings’ legal guardian. In practice this means the murderer has a right to know where they live, how school is going and to be involved in major decisions and the usual responsibilities.

When he was charged with her murder, his guardianship rights were not affected. When he was convicted of her murder, his guardianship rights were not affected. I see that as a tremendous oversight in the definition of a guardian. It is a loophole in child safety.

It might help a convict’s rehabilitation or reintegration after the life sentence, but from a child’s point of view, the reality is very different. For them (plus their housemates and carers to a lesser degree), there is now a convicted killer who knows where they live and has a say in their lives. Children exist in their own right and are not just stepping stones in the rehabilitation of others. Their safety, privacy, rights and opinions have to be taken into account. Killing the mother of a child is child abuse. Society should protect children from their abusers.

Surely it is possible to suspend a killer’s guardianship rights over children of the victim in the same way a killer’s freedom to travel outside prison is suspended? The UK recently enacted “Jade’s law” so that a person who is convicted in the criminal courts of killing their partner, or ex partner, will lose their parental responsibility for their children from that relationship.

The law in Ireland needs to change too, so that when someone is convicted of a killing, there must be an automatic suspension of guardianship of any children shared with the victim. Obviously, this should be subject to appeal, but the burden should rest on the convicted.

Chapter 7 subsection 3.18.4 of a 2023 government report entitled Study on Familicide and Violent Family Death Review includes this recommendation: “That the Child and Family Relationships Act 2015, or other relevant legislation (must) be amended to ensure that a parent who is convicted of the murder or manslaughter of the other parent does not retain guardianship of the surviving child or children.”

That is very clear, but there’s still no law or published draft more than a year later. If this loophole is too hard to fix, then there’s little hope for all the other 180-plus recommendations in the report. Any rational politician looking at a proposal crossing their desk wonders who is on the other side. Who would gain and who would lose if it was enacted? In this case, the losers are convicted killers and the winners are traumatised children.

I wouldn’t necessarily believe anything he says, but in one Garda interview her husband said my sister’s last words were “What about the boys?”

Her purported last words are exactly the right question.