Why we must recognise domestic abuse as part and parcel of terrorism

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This weekend, I’ve been following the mainstream media coverage in the aftermath of MP Sir David Amess’s death. Unfortunately, what we know about the perpetrator sounds all too familiar. He had been referred to the government’s Prevent scheme, which aims to tackle radicalisation, therefore he was somewhere ‘in the system’. He is now being detained under Section 41 of the Terrorism Act.

We’ve heard this all before haven’t we? Men who commit terror offences tend to have a history of involvement with extremist groups. They’ve been associated with others who are full of hatred and have an intention to harm others. They don’t just emerge out of thin air.

However, one thing that does seem to be missing from the debate so far is another ‘risk factor’ that is well known amongst feminist researchers and writers: misogyny and domestic abuse are incredibly common among men involved in terror offences.

I won’t say anything more about the man who is suspected of killing Sir David Amess, as he has not yet been convicted of a criminal offence, but I do want to share some of the general insights into the links between misogyny, domestic abuse and terrorism. Far too often, domestic abuse and terrorism are discussed as two completely separate issues. They’re seen as distinct, unrelated, mutually exclusive types of harm. They’re not.

The work of Joan Smith has been incredibly valuable in highlighting the link between the two. In her 2020 book, “Home Grown: How domestic violence turns men into terrorists”, she studies multiple terrorist attacks, and explores how the seeds for violence were sown very early on in perpetrator’s lives, long before they started hanging out with others who were a ‘bad influence’.

Many of those who commit terrorist offences were exposed to abuse within the home as children. They witnessed violence between their parents and / or they became the victims of a parent’s violence. They learned that violence had value, it was a means of establishing control, it became equated with power. 

Joan Smith explored the background of the London Bridge attacker, who tried at first to protect his mother and sister from his father’s violence before he joined in, concluding that he would survive longer by ‘switching sides’. He came to see women not as individuals to honour and respect, but as possessions to dominate and control. For eventual terrorists like him, family life wasn’t about love or safety, it was about violence and coercion.

As such, before these men joined the ranks of organised terrorists, they were already subscribing to a hateful ideology: misogyny.

They would go on to abuse women in the intimate relationships they formed. The killer of PC Keith Palmer had a long history of violence against women. He punched a woman in the face after she didn’t like his attitude when he was trying to chat her up. He was later convicted and fined of actual bodily harm against a girlfriend. He married in 2004 and subjected his wife to a horrendous campaign of coercively controlling behaviour, giving her a set of rules to follow. He did the same with his second wife.   

Terrorism isn’t common - in fact it’s incredibly rare - in those who experienced domestic abuse as children. Domestic abuse is not a prescription for future terrorism or any harmful behaviour towards other people. However, among terrorists, a history domestic abuse is common. This is something we cannot continue to ignore.

Joan Smith argues that terrorism begins at home and provides considerable evidence to back this up. Her work highlights the urgent need for initiatives like Prevent to incorporate this learning and recognise domestic abuse as a catalyst for terrorism.  

But before this can happen, we need to raise the status of domestic abuse, which has long been the ‘poor relation’ in criminal justice. Yes, we now have the Domestic Abuse Act, but as I’ve written previously, this is just a filtered down version of what campaigners and organisations tackling violence against women were asking for. If we are to prevent perpetrators taking the lives of people in the street or public figures going about their business, we must prioritise tackling domestic abuse in the home. A terrorist incident is never described as ‘just a terrorist incident’, but far too often, abuse behind closed doors continues to be seen as ‘just a domestic’.

I’ll conclude with a quote from Joan Smith’s book, which sums this up well:

The warning signs are there long before a man picks up a gun, hires a van or straps on a suicide vest, but they’re to be found in the home – and too many of us are accustomed to looking the other way. If we want to stop mass murder in public places, we need to listen to the wives, girlfriends, mothers and sisters who have personal experience of dangerous, unstable men[1].

[1] Smith, J. (2020). Home Grown: How domestic violence turns men into terrorists. London: Riverrun, p. 279.