Express & Star

Mylee’s Law: Mother of murdered Walsall schoolgirl calls for law change

The mother of tragic eight-year-old Mylee Billingham – who was stabbed to death by her father – is calling for the Government to create ‘Mylee’s Law’ as she battles to keep her ex-partner away from her two other children.

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Mylee Billingham

Tracey Taundry, from Walsall, has launched a petition which calls for a law to automatically remove the parental responsibility of someone if they are convicted of a serious crime.

She said online: “I have three children. My eight-year-old daughter was murdered by my ex-partner. He is serving a life sentence, but he still has legal rights to my other two children, making life extremely difficult.

“Parents should not have to go to court to remove parental responsibility when a partner has committed a serious crime.

"The law needs to be changed so parental responsibility is automatically removed after conviction.”

William Billingham, aged 55, was handed a life sentence of at least 27 years back in October for the ‘brutal and cowardly’ murder of his young daughter.

William Billingham

The murderer, who will be 82 before he can be considered for release, killed his daughter in his Brownhills bungalow in a ‘revenge’ act against Ms Taundry.

The unemployed factory worker, who has two children with Ms Taundry and another three children from previous relationships, became ‘jealous’ of Ms Taundry’s new relationship.

He locked Ms Taundry out of his Valley View home, dragging St James Primary School pupil Mylee back inside where she screamed ‘stop it daddy’ on January 20.

Billingham’s defence team claimed he had moderate depression at the time but this was disputed by a prosecution psychiatrist who dubbed the killer’s lack of memory surrounding the murder as ‘not genuine’.

Ms Taundry described how her life ‘fell apart’ when Mylee was murdered – and said that now she was struggling with the fact he still had legal rights to her two other children.

Locals in Walsall have been sharing the petition online, and it has attracted almost 1,500 signatures so far.

Nicola Khadhraoui, who lives in the area, shared the petition and said: “You all remember beautiful Mylee who was so devastatingly taken away – well this is for her and her family and many more out there. Please sign and share far and wide let’s get this law changed.”

The petition can be viewed by visiting https://bit.ly/33r7dzb.

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