Perpetrators of Domestic Abuse Are Using Arson as a Weapon

This article originally appeared on VICE UK.

"Your house is going to go up in flames."
"I'm going to make sure you're a dead girl."
"I will kill you."

Seventeen-year-old Kayleigh Buckley was inundated with threatening texts like these from her boyfriend, Carl Mills, between August and September 2012. Mills was 28, controlling and abusive. He resented the attention Kayleigh was giving to her six-month-old daughter Kimberley. On September 17, the texts continued: "That oxygen will blow you up and that's what I want." "That's a warning sign." Then, he set fire to the house in Cwmbran, South Wales where Kayleigh, her mother Kim, and daughter Kimberley were sleeping.

Flames quickly spread from the porch to the stairs, trapping the family. Neighbors used ladders to try and rescue them but the fire was too fierce. Kim, Kayleigh, and Kimberley died. Mills stood outside and watched the house burn.

Mills was jailed for 35 years. He had committed 45 previous violent offenses while living in Bolton, including setting fire to his mother's bed. Weeks before, Kayleigh's mother had reported him to the police. The complete failure of police and social services to protect the Buckleys prompted a Domestic Homicide Review, a Serious Case Review, and a report by the Independent Police Complaints Commission. The IPCC found Gwent police had failed to recognize Mills's controlling and abusive behavior as domestic abuse.

The case was horrendous, but not unique. What happened to the Buckleys echoed a similar tragedy that happened a year before, when three generations of the same family also died in a house fire in Kent. Twenty-year-old Melissa Crook, her father Mark, and 15-month-old son Noah all died when Melissa's estranged husband, Danai Muhammadi, set fire to their house. He was helped by his friend Farhad Mahmud and they were both found guilty of murder. Like the Buckley case, the trial was full of evidence of abuse, control, and jealousy.

For domestic abusers, fire can be a terrifyingly simple way to maintain control over a victim. After the fire that killed Melissa Crook, Kent Fire and Rescue said they were seeing more and more incidents of that kind, and called for national research to be done to establish the link between domestic abuse and arson.

Authorities across the UK have special Fire Crime units, which help people threatened directly with arson or by a person with arson in their background. Their job is to "target harden" homes—adding some small modifications to make it as difficult as possible for someone to carry out a threat. I met with one such team in South Wales, which has seen its monthly referrals rise from 50 to about 70 since November 2014.

Like other fire crime units across the UK, the South Wales team have noticed an undeniable pattern in the cases they were dealing with: Referrals will range from hate crime to "honor-based violence," but the overwhelming majority of people the team deals with are victims of domestic abuse.

"It's a very easy weapon, arson," says Emma Bushell, a station manager for the Fire Crime Unit at South Wales Fire and Rescue Service. "You don't have to be physically strong. You don't need special equipment."

The South Wales unit will be on call 24/7 to deal with emergency cases, as long as the police are also present. Grace Leyshon and Caroline Psaila work with Emma as part of the Fire Crime Unit and cover Newport and Cardiff respectively. They explain that even as an empty threat, the fear of fire can be paralyzing.

"If I say I'm going to burn your house down, and you genuinely believe I'm going to, I can control you no end, can't I?" says Grace. "We get there and people will have Sellotaped over their letterboxes, they'll have buckets of water under the letterbox, or buckets of sand. And there are little ones in the house. There are almost always children involved."

Cases can come to the team from the police or organizations like Women's Aid. Many people don't know that the service exists, or just how often it's used to help survivors of domestic abuse. "Some people refuse the help," says Caroline. "It's hard, because five or six months down the line we might get a referral for that same person again. Some people are too proud, they don't want a fuss."

Obviously, no house can ever be completely fire-proof: someone can find opportunity in wooden front doors or open windows. Emma shows me one of the mail-guards the team uses to try and stop petrol and other material being put through people's letterboxes. "This will give the person that lives there more peace of mind, and it will make it more difficult for that perpetrator to set fire to your house. This is here because people want to stay in their houses." Sometimes, if you're a victim of domestic abuse, the last thing you want to—or can—do is pick your kids up and move.

The fire and rescue service isn't one that is typically associated with tackling domestic abuse, and this can be advantageous. The fire and rescue team are subtle, and are less likely to arouse the suspicions of perpetrators who might see them calling to a victim's house. And while domestic abuse victims may be reluctant to let the police or social services in the door, people trust firefighters and children admire them. The South Wales team say there have been several incidents when firefighters called to "accidental" fires have had victims at the scene disclose details of domestic abuse.

Grace and Caroline's work requires them to go above and beyond the already demanding standards required to work in the fire and rescue service. They go to great lengths to make themselves as inconspicuous as possible, for the benefit of victims. They park far away from the property and turn up in plain clothes. Sometimes they've had to lie to a victim's family to cover for them and keep their abuse a secret.

"We've also had cases where we've turned up and the perpetrator has quite obviously answered the door," says Caroline, "so we have to pretend we're just in the area for another reason."

One of the things the Fire Crime Unit credits for the increase in cases they've seen is the profile of the Violence Against Women, Sexual Violence, and Domestic Abuse law which was passed by the Welsh Assembly in March of this year. The bill will introduce a training framework to replicate the work South Wales Fire and Rescue are doing across the country. As with any service connected to domestic abuse, referrals going up is seen as a good thing. But, there is a worry about stretching resources at a time when cuts are omnipresent. The team is only five strong, and this is only a small part of what they do. They already work 12-hour days and stay late to deal with cases which they "simply can't leave until the morning."

The final version of the bill also controversially left out widely-praised plans to make "healthy relationship education" part of the school curriculum. Critics say there's little sense in throwing the kitchen sink at frontline resources while rejecting preventative measures.

"We need that extra level of social change," says Tina Reece from Welsh Women's Aid. "It sounds like a massive thing to tackle, but education can help prevent the power imbalance that can happen in relationships, the equality issues that are already there that are the seeds for this kind of abuse happening."

South Wales is the first and only fire and rescue authority in the UK to be awarded White Ribbon status, from the charity set up by men committed to ending violence against women. This means the authority takes a whole-force approach to tackling violence against women and girls. "Our chief was really keen because the fire service is seen as a male-dominated organization," says Emma. "To children and adults alike, a firefighter is like a good male role model to say domestic abuse is not OK."

And as one small part of the White Ribbon action plan, young firefighters in South Wales now receive healthy relationship education as part of their training.

"All the front-line people who go into people's houses are asking questions now," says Emma, "Is there something that's not right? Is there is a fist size hole in the wall? Are there locks broken on the doors? Are there children really anxious about males coming into the home?" To recognize the extent of domestic abuse, people need to know what it looks like. Emma sees that kind of training as "absolutely essential," not just for firefighters but for the public generally.

"If you're going to be a firefighter, and be a standup member of the community, you must speak up about this, you must not be silent, you must report it, and you must not stand for it," says Emma, on a final note. "It might be that they never see anything. But it's trying to raise awareness that it is going on in so many properties, and that we should be looking for it."

Below is a list of resources that can provide help to anyone living in an abusive relationship:

National Domestic Violence Hotline: 1-800-799-7233

Domestic Abuse Hotline for Men and Women: 1-888-743-5754

National Organization for Women

National Organization for Women NYC Domestic Violence Helpline: 1-800-942-6906

For information on women's shelters in NYC, go to Safe Horizon.

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