Partner slayings ignored

At least 20 women have been murdered by their partners or former partners since Sophie Elliott was killed in January last year, a women's group says.

Ruth Herbert, of the Roundtable on Violence against Women, said yesterday that it was a disgrace that official figures were not kept to show when someone was killed by a partner.

"It is as though the lives of these women had no value. They are not even identified in statistics."

Herbert estimated that a woman was murdered by a partner or former partner on average every 3.7 weeks.

Elliott's mother, Lesley, said she wanted to use her daughter's case an an example to young women that abusive relationships were unacceptable.

"Let's start a new generation of women that come along and don't find that sort of behaviour acceptable," Elliott said.

National Collective of Independent Women's Refuges chief executive Heather Henare said the sentencing comments of Justice Judith Potter in the Weatherston case were "particularly heartening".

"Weatherston's tactics and refusal to take responsibility for his actions were not unusual but were a classic example of the justifications used by perpetrators of violence every day," Henare said.

Christchurch Women's Refuge chief executive Annette Gillespie said domestic violence was a "never-ending problem".

"If we can engender a shift in our community's covert acceptance of domestic abuse as a private issue which doesn't affect us, then we will finally be creating a society where people like Sophie Elliott get to live the lives they deserve," she said.

- © Fairfax NZ News