Sian Norris explains that no, “fundamentally decent” men don’t murder women. You’d think that wouldn’t need explaining, but…

I’ve just killed my wife […] bit different for you tonight I expect. Happy New Year.”

These were the words of former Ukip-councillor Stephen Searle during a 999 call. Searle, 64, was this week found guilty of killing his wife, Anne. She was 62 years old.

He then quipped: “Bit of a bizarre situation but you know, never mind.”

How fundamentally decent of him.

The joke is even less funny when you realise that domestic abuse and fatal male violence are anything but bizarre in the UK.

Across the country, just under two women a week are murdered by their former or current partner. The National Crime Surveyrecorded that, in England and Wales, there are 1.2 million incidents of domestic abuse every year. The vast majority (89 per cent) of victims who endure sustained abuse (four or more incidents) are women. And the Counting Dead Woman project has so far estimated that 73 women have been killed by men in 2018 (this includes non-domestic violence related killings).

Well, look at it from the fundamentally decent guys’ point of view. Don’t these stats just show how annoying women are? Doesn’t that make it all explicable, however sad? Doesn’t it make it almost kind of…normal?

During the call, Searle went on to reassure the phone operative that it was safe for officers to enter his house, as “I’m not violent.”

Only to women he’s married to, which doesn’t count, because *cue annoying wife joke*

Fatal male violence isn’t a dispute that gets out of control. It’s a great myth that domestic abusers have no control over their behaviour. The very fact that women are most vulnerable at the point of leaving shows that it is losing control that abusers most fear. Murdering your partner is the ultimate act of control — not a loss of it.

And it’s not decent, either fundamentally or superficially.