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Every suicide where the victim had experienced abuse at home should be considered a potential homicide, as per demands from advocates who seek to hold abusers responsible for the devastating consequences of their actions.

This step is essential because law enforcement are not doing enough to hold offenders to justice in instances of suicide following family violence.

“In case after case, there is widespread breakdown, especially within the criminal justice system, to examine these deaths with the gravity they deserve,” remarked a co-director of a advocacy organization during a significant gathering in Westminster earlier this week.

The assembly, organized by a organization leading a “Self-Inflicted Death is Murder” campaign to fight for change in the legal framework, united families who had suffered bereavement to suicide following family violence.

Personal Stories of Tragedy

Sharon Holland experienced the death of her child her 23-year-old daughter in spring 2023. Prior to her passing, Chloe had informed her former partner to authorities, submitting a lengthy recorded statement as proof about his conduct.

Following her passing, the individual was convicted of coercive and controlling behavior and jailed for 41 months. He was later sentenced for three years and seven months after a second woman stepped up to disclose that she had been in a harmful partnership with him.

After Chloe’s death, the mother decided to campaign for a new law to bring perpetrators accountable; however she then realized that laws were already in place, they just were rarely applied to achieve convictions.

“I decided it wasn’t a fresh legislation I required as current statutes were already there, and after learning how much my child had been failed previous to her death by the authorities and numerous services, they had to fulfill their duties, and practices needed to change,” she said.

“More than four dozen relatives have contacted me and only four of us have had a conviction,” she added. “I was astonished to see such a large number who have been fighting the authorities and CPS for a long time and receiving no resolution for their child or brother or sister and didn’t have a voice in case it affected investigations that weren’t possibly going anywhere.”

Another Tragic Case

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

“Hannah was vibrant, she was loving,” she said. “She had great potential, and she was an amazing, really loving mum to her two children, and she died by suicide after 24 months in a relationship where she was methodically broken down by her companion,” she said.

“She endured physical assaults, she was psychologically tortured, she was dominated and dismantled gradually until she was unable to envision a path ahead. The individual who caused this walked free, because we call it self-inflicted death, we close the file and we proceed.

“But I could not move on,” she said, “and I haven’t been able to move on. In truth, Hannah didn’t just die by suicide. She was murdered. She was killed slowly and deliberately over a 24-month span, and when I went to the police, when I pleaded with them to look into what he had done to her, I was informed that there was nothing that they could do.

“There was no investigation into her death. The domestic violence fatality analysis, which I had to struggle to obtain, required five years and changed nothing. A four day inquest found death by suicide, notwithstanding huge evidence over a very traumatic four day period of family violence and shortcomings by various agencies.”

The parent informed the gathering that for eight years she has “struggled against a establishment that refuses to see what is right in front of it”.

She emphasized the self-inflicted death is murder campaign was vital “because when an individual takes their own life after they’ve suffered family violence, we have to investigate it for what it really is, which is homicide.

“We must apply the laws we currently have effectively and it really isn’t happening at the moment, and we need to make perpetrators responsible for pushing their targets to suicide.

“The statutes exist. We require determination, we need law enforcement to investigate properly. We need the Crown Prosecution Service to take legal action. We need the judiciary to recognize that verbal abuse and manipulation can cause death equally to physical force and arms.”

Government Reaction

At a follow-up gathering in the House of Commons, chaired by a Labour MP, and attended by the safeguarding minister, the grieving families again shared their experiences.

A parliamentary under-secretary told the meeting: “These deaths are often written off as if they were their own choice, they chose to do this, when, in truth, these were the result of in fact, another person’s abuse, and these aren’t isolated stories.”

“The legal system is flawed, we know that,” she stated. “Particularly around murder or manslaughter, it is piecemeal. It’s not written in statute anyway, it has been developed with common law practices for centuries, and it is no longer fit for purpose, honestly, given the society we inhabit today.

“I will not claim that it’s going to be easy to fix. It is extremely complicated and difficult, especially when you consider the matter of murder, but we recognize that it needs to be looked at.”

Prosecution Service Statement

A representative for the prosecution service commented: “Domestic abuse is a terrible offense and our prosecutors are actively advised to consider homicide allegations in self-inflicted death instances where there is a known context of family violence or other controlling or coercive behavior.

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

“We are collaborating with police and other parties to ensure these kinds of offences are clearly recognized – so that we can bring perpetrators to justice for the full extent of their wrongdoings.”