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Every suicide where the deceased had experienced domestic violence should be considered a potential homicide, as per calls from campaigners who aim to make perpetrators responsible for the devastating consequences of their actions.

This move is essential because police and prosecutors are not doing enough to bring perpetrators to justice in cases of suicide following domestic abuse.

“In case after case, there is widespread breakdown, especially within the criminal justice system, to scrutinise these fatalities with the gravity they deserve,” stated a leader of a advocacy organization during a landmark gathering in London recently.

The meeting, organized by a group running a “Self-Inflicted Death is Murder” initiative to advocate for reform in the legal framework, brought together families who had suffered bereavement to suicide after family violence.

Personal Stories of Loss

Sharon Holland experienced the death of her child her 23-year-old daughter in spring 2023. Before her death, Chloe had reported her former partner to authorities, providing a two-hour video interview as evidence against him.

Following her passing, the perpetrator was found guilty of coercive and controlling behavior and jailed for 41 months. He was subsequently jailed for three years and seven months after a another victim came forward to disclose that she had been in a harmful partnership with him.

In the wake of her loss, the parent decided to campaign for a legal change to hold offenders to justice; yet she then realized that laws were already in place, they just weren’t often being used to secure prosecutions.

“I decided it was not a fresh legislation I required as current statutes were in place, and after finding out how much my child had been failed previous to her death by the authorities and numerous services, they needed to fulfill their duties, and things needed to change,” she explained.

“More than four dozen relatives have found me and only four of us have had a guilty verdict,” she continued. “I was astonished to see such a large number who have been battling the authorities and CPS for a long time and receiving no resolution for their offspring or sibling and didn’t have a voice in case it affected investigations that weren’t possibly going anywhere.”

Further Heartbreaking Account

One mother’s daughter her 30-year-old daughter passed away in May 2017, in what she called “the final act of violence” in a prolonged pattern of mistreatment.

“Hannah was vibrant, she was loving,” she stated. “She had great potential, and she was an amazing, really loving mother to her two children, and she died by suicide after 24 months in a partnership where she was methodically broken down by her partner,” she explained.

“She was physically beaten, she was psychologically tortured, she was dominated and broken down piece by piece until she was unable to envision a path ahead. The man who caused this walked free, because we call it suicide, we conclude the case and we proceed.

“But I could not move on,” she remarked, “and I haven’t been able to move on. Honestly, she did not merely take her own life. She was murdered. She was killed slowly and deliberately over a 24-month span, and when I approached the authorities, when I begged them to investigate what he had inflicted upon her, I was told that there was nothing that they could do.

“No inquiry was conducted into her passing. The domestic violence fatality analysis, which I had to fight for, required five years and had no impact. A lengthy coroner’s hearing found death by suicide, notwithstanding huge evidence over a extremely distressing multi-day session of domestic abuse and failings by multiple services.”

The mother informed the gathering that for a decade she has “been fighting a establishment that ignores what is obvious”.

She emphasized the suicide is homicide campaign was critical “because when an individual dies by suicide after they’ve suffered family violence, we have to examine it for what it truly represents, which is murder.

“We must use the legislation we already possess properly and it really isn’t happening at the moment, and we need to make perpetrators responsible for pushing their targets to suicide.

“We have the laws. We need the will, we need law enforcement to conduct thorough inquiries. We need the Crown Prosecution Service to prosecute. We need judges to recognize that verbal abuse and manipulation can kill equally to hands and weapons.”

Government Reaction

At a follow-up gathering in the House of Commons, chaired by a Labour MP, and including the government official, the bereaved relatives again told their stories.

A parliamentary under-secretary told the meeting: “These deaths are often dismissed as if they were their decision, they chose to do this, when, in truth, these were the culmination of actually, another person’s abuse, and these aren’t rare incidents.”

“Our law is broken, we are aware,” she stated. “Particularly around murder or unlawful killing, it is piecemeal. It lacks statutory basis anyway, it has been shaped with common law practices for centuries, and it is outdated, honestly, it’s the world we currently live in.

“I’m not going to pretend that it’s going to be simple to resolve. It is extremely complicated and difficult, particularly when you consider the matter of homicide, but we acknowledge that it requires examination.”

Legal Authority Comment

A spokesperson for the prosecution service said: “Family violence is a heinous crime and our prosecutors are actively advised to evaluate murder and manslaughter charges in self-inflicted death instances where there is a established background of domestic abuse or other manipulative conduct.

“We have in the past prosecuted a number of defendants for leading to the fatality of a partner they abused, encompassing in cases which are ongoing.

“We are also working with police and other stakeholders to guarantee these types of crimes are well-understood – so that we can bring perpetrators to justice for the complete scope of their wrongdoings.”