Dr Rachel Hopkins

26-year-old Kyle Clifford is being hunted by police. It’s a fast moving situation and there’s a lot we don’t know. But there is one thing that we DO know. And it’s depressingly, devastatingly familiar. Three woman are dead. They were killed in their home. A mum, she was 61, and her two girls, 25 and 28, both in their twenties - that decade when you’re working out who you want to be and where you want to go with your life. But for them, that’s now over. A woman is killed by a man every three days in the United Kingdom. That number has been remarkably consistent for the last twenty years. Women are also much more likely to be killed by someone they know - two thirds of them are killed by a current or former partner. “Domestic” – that word that somehow doesn’t feel adequate – because terror can also happen in the home. Remember the three women killed at home in Bushey were still alive when the emergency services got there. Yvette Cooper – the new Home Secretary – has said the killings are “truly shocking” – and she’s being kept fully updated on the case. During the campaign, she said that violence against women and girls will be treated as a national emergency under Labour. And less than a week into the job… three women killed at home. It certainly feels like an emergency.