Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer has promised to look at calls made by the mum of stabbed teen Holly Newton to lower the age someone can be recognised as a domestic abuse victim.
Holly was just 15-years-old when she was stabbed to death by her ex-boyfriend Logan MacPhail in an alleyway in Hexham two years ago. After seeing the killer locked up, Holly’s mum Micala Trussler told of her frustration that Holly’s case is not classified as a domestic violence murder due to the fact her daughter was aged under 16 when she died.
And the heartbroken mum has called for more advice and support for young teens experiencing abuse in relationships. Today Hexham MP Joe Morris raised the case during Prime Minister’s Questions, asking Sir Keir to look at Micala’s calls “urgently”.
The Labour member said: “Will the Prime Minister and Home Secretary look urgently at the calls of Holly’s mother to lower the age that a person can be recognised as a victim of domestic abuse.” The Prime Minister replied: “Can I thank the honourable member for raising this tragic case it is a really important issue.
“We’ve seen an increase in violence in teenage relationships in the last decade and I’ve been continually shocked by research that shows that at a younger and younger age, there’s abuse in relationships. So we do need to look at this at the earliest opportunity to how we properly protect girls, but I’m very grateful this tragic case has been raised.”
In UK law, domestic abuse can take place only when two people personally connected to each other are aged 16 or over. When it prepared the Domestic Abuse Act 2021, the Home Office said it wanted to maintain the age limit.
“We do not want to risk blurring the lines between domestic abuse and child abuse,” it wrote in a policy paper, adding: “In 2012, following a public consultation, the age limit in the cross-government definition of domestic abuse was lowered from 18 to 16, to recognise that young people can experience abuse in their relationships.”
Home Secretary Yvette Cooper has previously said the Government “will particularly, specifically look at this, because we need to make sure that we have got the right ways of recording this kind of violence in teenage relationships”.
MacPhail, of Birtley in Gateshead, was jailed for life with a minimum term of 17 years after being found guilty of Holly’s murder at Newcastle Crown Court. The court heard how MacPhail left school early to travel to Hexham, where Holly went to school, on the day of the murder, in January 2023.
CCTV showed he followed Holly and her friends for around 45 minutes before eventually persuading Holly to speak to him, in an alleyway next to a pizza shop. Here MacPhail launched his deadly attack. Holly, from Haltwhistle, was taken to hospital, but nothing could be done to save her life.
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