Jess Phillips reads names of Sussex women killed past year

Labour MP Jess Phillips spoke in the House of Commons about 118 women where men had either been charged with or convicted of killing them.

She said there is currently no research into the data of women killed and said it shows that society has “just accepted” dead women as “one of those things”.

The speech comes amid public shock over the alleged murder of Sarah Everard in South London.

It took Ms Phillips four minutes to read out the names of women who have fallen victim to the violence of men.

During her speech, made to the Commons for a debate on International Women’s Day, Ms Phillips named five women from Sussex.

They were Ruth Brown, a pub worker and mother murdered in Bognor in April last year by partner Wayne Morris who was recently jailed for life.

Ruth Brown. See SWNS story SWNNtray. A binman has been jailed for life for killing his girlfriend with a plastic tray during a drunken lockdown row - just days after moving in with her. Wayne Morris, 47, had been staying with Ruth, 52, at her home in

Carol Smith, who was found dead at her home in Watermill Lane, Bexhill in February, and police have launched Operation Woodhouse to investigate.

A woman found dead in Bexhill has been identified as Carol Smith, with a post-mortem giving a a provisional cause of death as an injury consistent with gunshot wounds

Kelly Fitzgibbons, who was gunned down with her two young daughters in Woodmancote in West Sussex in March last year.

Kelly Fitzgibbons with daughters Ava and Alexi, died in Woodmancote, Sussex, near Chichester in March 2020

Jackie Hoadley, a disability rights campaigner who was murdered by her estranged husband Raymond Hoadley in Eastbourne in July.

Jackie Hoadley was murdered at her home in Eastbourne

And Sue Addis, the Brighton restaurant boss who was found dead at her home in Withdean, Brighton in January this year, with a 17-year-old young man accused of her murder set to stand trial later this year.

Sue Addis

Ms Phillips said: “In this place we count what we care about. We count the number of vaccines done, we count the number of people on benefits... we rule or oppose on a count and we obsessively track that data.

“We love to count data about our own popularity. However, we do not currently count dead women. No government study is done into the pattern every year of victims of domestic abuse who are killed or commit suicide or who have died suddenly.

Labour MP Jess Phillips in Parliament

“Dead women is just a thing we all just accept as part of our daily lives. Dead women are just one of those things.

“Killed women are not vanishingly rare. Killed women are common. Dead women do count.”

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Ms Phillips' speech was praised by Hove and Portslade Labour MP Peter Kyle who said: “It’s the fifth time I’ve watched Jess’ statement on International Women’s Day and each year the list of women and children murdered by men lasts for minute after heartbreaking minute.

“This is a problem that runs deep into our society and must be tackled by a culture change that includes a much better and more inclusive approach to sex and relationship teaching in schools.

“At the other end of the spectrum, government must fix our system of justice to make victims unignorable and create a clear sentencing regime that makes it clear to every man that violence towards women will never, ever be tolerated and will have life-changing consequences for them just as it does for women victims.”