Jade’s Law – Parents Imprisoned For Killing Other Parent To Lose Parental Rights

The Justice Secretary, Alex Chalk, has said that the Government will soon be introducing new powers to stop parents who have murdered their partners from retaining parental responsibility rights for their children.

Jade’s Law

At the Conservative Party conference, Alex Chalk outlined plans to implement Jade’s Law before Parliament by the end of the year. The measures will protect families from the manipulation of imprisoned abusers.

The measures will come into force after a woman, Jade Ward, was strangled and stabbed by her partner, Russell Marsh, in 2021 while their four sons were asleep. Despite being sent to prison, Russell Marsh continues to try and control his children from behind bars.

Jade’s Law will mean that there will be an automatic suspension of parental responsibility while any mother or father is in prison for killing the person with whom they share that parental responsibility. Currently, parental responsibility stays in place if one parent were to kill another, and the guardians or family of the children must check with that parent on decisions regarding education, travel, and health.

As a result, Russell Marsh retains the right to request progress reports as well as medical details of his children and could even stop them from getting either therapy or travelling abroad, despite being found guilty of killing their mother.

Since the incident, Russell Ward’s family has been looking after the children and has campaigned to prevent him from having any parental rights. Russell Marsh has contacted the family asking for medical details, school reports, and photographs.

Jade’s Dad, Paul Ward, has referred to the situation as “absolutely shocking”, telling the BBC:

Paul also said that if he wanted to get his grandson’s passports, it would need to go through the Courts.

The measures announced will be proposed to Parliament as part of the Victims and Prisoners Bill. Prior to this, the Government had turned down an amendment to a Bill that would have changed the law. They said they were looking for a faster way to implement new powers.

Alex Chalk told the Conservative Party conference that:

In November 2022, a family friend, Edward Duggan, introduced a petition for the law to change, he gained over 130,000 signatures which triggered a Commons debate.