When Home Office Minister Jess Phillips reads out the names of women who have been killed by men in the last year in Parliament on Thursday March 12, one of the names will be Isobella Knight. Since her murder, her parents have faced further horror – having to fight her killer for parental rights over their children.
Tim Davies and Helena Sharrott have been forced into seeking another legal fight.(Image: Ian Vogler / Daily Mirror)
When Home Office Minister Jess Phillips reads out the grim roll call of women killed by men in the last year in Parliament, every name will bring an agonising pain of recognition for Tim Davies and Helena Sharrott. Especially as their beautiful daughters’ name will be there.
Identifying her body was the worst moment of 58-year-old grandfather Tim’s life. But just days after her murder on June 13, 2025, he found himself sitting in a meeting, being told that her cocaine addict husband Paul Knight, 36, who killed her, still retained parental responsibility for their two young daughters.
A social worker mentioned Jade’s Law – legislation passed in May 2024, to automatically suspend the parental rights of a parent convicted of killing their partner – and for a brief moment, he assumed his family would be protected. But he was wrong. He tells The Mirror: “I mistakenly believed that it would automatically happen.”
Instead, to Tim and his family’s horror, he says: “Unless his parental rights were forcibly removed, there was no default position.”
For Tim and 32-year-old Isobella’s mother Helena Sharrott, this signalled the start of a legal battle to protect their two grandchildren – who had been upstairs asleep in a bedroom when Knight strangled their mum at their home in Burton Latimer, Northamptonshire, in what the judge later described as a “fit of rage.”
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The couple were experiencing financial problems and Isobella had been considering a separation before Knight killed her – watching pornography on his and his wife’s phones before and after her murder.. He then asked his mother to look after the children the next morning, claiming he and Isobella – known as Izzy – had tummy bugs.
He wrote a suicide note admitting to the murder, before crashing his car into a McDonalds in a bid to end his life. Initially admitting manslaughter, but denying murder at Northampton Crown Court, he changed to a guilty plea and was jailed for life in January, with a minimum of 17 years and one month.
Tim says: “Izzy was a caring person and as a mum, she was great. She was dedicated to her children. She devoted herself to bringing them up.”
A buyer for MM Flowers in nearby Alconbury, Izzy was also a talented artist with a portraits business and Tim says he treasures her drawings, which “serve as a forever memory.” He continues: “She always put her children first and she was loved and known by her community.”
In the days after her death, as police and courts moved swiftly, the family discovered that Izzy’s marriage was breaking down, following months of coercive control at Knight’s hands. Her parents were unaware of the depth of his cocaine addiction and discovered she’d been trying to leave him since early 2024, but was trying to work out what would be best for the children.
Tim says: “Between early 2025 and when he killed her in June, she’d started to look for a new house – her phone records show that she was on Rightmove.”
“She wanted to go and she was preparing to go. On the day he killed her, one of the phone records shows she was looking at Rightmove. She’d come to the end of her tether.”
Tragically, she was murdered before she could leave and take her daughters to safety, And her murder signalled the start of another fight for Tim and Helena – to remove Knight’s parental responsibility.
Initially, they were advised that Knight having parental responsibility did not matter. It would only prevent them from changing the children’s surnames. But that was not the case.
Tim, who is divorced from Helena but remains good friends and speaks for the family, says: “This is still ongoing. Frustration and hurt that we have to go through this process still now to get this. So it’s not over and it’s upsetting that we can’t move on.
“I’m doing this for my grandchildren, and very much so for my ex-wife.”
“Jade’s Law is supposed to protect the interests of families who pick up the pieces, as we have done.”
Introduced as part of the Victims and Prisoners Act 2024, Jade’s Law is designed to automatically suspend the parental responsibility of anyone convicted of the murder or manslaughter of a partner with whom they have children. Instead of grieving families having to apply through the family courts to strip a killer of their parental rights, the suspension should take effect at sentencing, subject to swift judicial review in the child’s best interests.
The legislation is named after Jade Ward, whose family campaigned for a law change after her killer, Russell Marsh, was able to remain involved in decisions about their children. Ed Duggan, a family friend, who led the campaign for Jade’s Law, said the legislation has received Royal Assent but has yet to be enacted.
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He tells The Mirror: “The entire idea of Jade’s Law was to remove this burden from families, as the automatic suspension of parental responsibility from the convicted person upon sentencing would shift the burden from the family over to the offender.
“Statistically, two families a week are added to the growing number of families who can have the protection which Jade’s Law provides.
“The Ministry of Justice gave me vague answers during my recent meeting. The primary reasons for the delay was, in their words, ‘due to ensuring the safety of the child and having to liaise and instruct various agencies on how this will be implemented.’”
But this is small comfort to families like Izzy’s. Tim says: “I fear that he could still exert control from prison on the children.”
“There’s a no contact order, but the family courts are duty bound to tell him what changes there may be [concerning the children’s circumstances] and he has a right to object .
“Regardless of the outcome, he can stop, prevent and make life difficult and maybe even stop things from happening – like moving house, moving school, getting a passport, these types of things.
“He has a right to be told every time one of the children hurts themselves or needs an injection or something. So those ongoing rights are always there unless they’re actually removed.”
Izzy’s family have had to attend Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service (Cafcass) hearings – the most recent being in December – where Helena finally received a special guardianship order. Now the couple have to seek legal support, so they can afford to fight to have Knight’s parental rights removed
Of Knight’s position, Tim says: “The Crown gives him all the legal aid he needs. Cafcass gives him all the legal support. I didn’t get any – the victims don’t get free legal aid.”
Tim says of one of his grandchildren: “Even a child asks, can I have faith in the system? It’s about saying yes to her with conviction and it’s about saying yes.”
“Jade’s law is too late for us. We have to go back through the family courts process to remove Knight’s parental rights. But we want to see it enacted now, so it isn’t too late for other parents.”
A Ministry of Justice spokesperson told The Mirror “We are committed to implementing Jade’s Law as swiftly and safely as possible so that families are protected from further trauma, and work to commence the provisions is well underway.”
