Emma Pattison and the painful truth about ‘femicide’

Emma Pattison and her seven-year-old daughter Lettie were almost certainly killed by her husband George Pattison. As so often happens with cases of family annihilation, George Pattison escaped any criminal sanctions by shooting himself.

Emma, who was 45, called a close relative last Saturday, hours before she and her daughter died, sounding ‘distressed’. We also know that a firearm, licenced to Pattison, was recovered at the scene. Police say they are treating the killings as a ‘homicide investigation’ and are not looking for anyone else in connection.

Emma had been working as a head teacher at Epsom College, in Surrey, for only five months when she died. She was the first female head of the college. Emma was, by all accounts, a brilliant teacher. ‘She was exactly what you would want from a headteacher,’ the mother of a pupil said.

‘Family annihilators’ as feminist criminologist refer to such men (because they are always men) are perhaps the most misrepresented of all killers.