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Every suicide where the victim had experienced abuse at home should be treated as a potential homicide, as per calls from campaigners who seek to make perpetrators responsible for the devastating consequences of their behavior.

This move is essential because law enforcement are not doing enough to hold offenders accountable in instances of suicide after family violence.

“Time and again, there is widespread breakdown, especially within the legal system, to scrutinise these deaths with the seriousness they deserve,” stated a leader of a advocacy organization at a significant gathering in London earlier this week.

The assembly, organized by a group leading a “Self-Inflicted Death is Murder” campaign to fight for reform in the criminal justice system, brought together relatives who had lost loved ones to self-inflicted death following domestic abuse.

Individual Accounts of Loss

Sharon Holland lost her daughter Chloe Holland in spring 2023. Before her death, the young woman had informed her former partner to authorities, submitting a lengthy recorded statement as proof about his conduct.

Following her passing, the individual 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 second woman stepped up to report that she had been in a harmful partnership with him.

In the wake of her loss, the parent chose to advocate for a legal change to bring perpetrators accountable; however she then realized that laws were already in place, they just weren’t often being used to secure prosecutions.

“I concluded it wasn’t a new law I needed as existing laws were already there, and after learning how much my child had been failed previous to her taking her life by the authorities and numerous services, they needed to do their job properly, and practices required reform,” she said.

“Over 47 families have contacted me and only four of us have had a guilty verdict,” she continued. “I was so shocked to see such a large number who have been fighting the authorities and CPS for a long time and getting no justice for their child or brother or sister and could not speak out in case it impacted investigations that weren’t possibly going anywhere.”

Further Heartbreaking Account

One mother’s child 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.

“She was vibrant, she was loving,” she said. “She was full of promise, and she was an amazing, really loving mother to her kids, and she died by suicide after two years in a partnership where she was systematically destroyed by her partner,” she explained.

“She endured physical assaults, she was psychologically tortured, she was controlled and dismantled piece by piece until she could not see a way forward. The man who did this to her walked free, because we label it self-inflicted death, we close the file and we proceed.

“Yet I was unable to continue,” she said, “and I have not managed to move on. Honestly, she didn’t just die by suicide. She was killed. Her death was gradual and intentionally over a two year period, and when I approached the authorities, when I pleaded with them to investigate what he had done to her, I was informed that there was no action that they were able to take.

“There was no investigation into her death. The domestic violence fatality analysis, which I had to struggle to obtain, required five years and had no impact. A lengthy coroner’s hearing determined death by suicide, despite huge evidence over a extremely distressing four day period of domestic abuse and failings by multiple services.”

The parent told the meeting that for eight years she has “been fighting a system that ignores what is right in front of it”.

She said the suicide is homicide movement was critical “since when an individual takes their own life after they’ve suffered domestic abuse, we have to investigate it for what it truly represents, which is murder.

“We must use the legislation we already possess effectively and it really isn’t happening at the moment, and we need to hold abusers accountable for pushing their targets to suicide.

“The statutes exist. We require determination, we need law enforcement to investigate properly. We need the prosecution authority to take legal action. We need judges to understand that words and control can cause death just as much as hands and weapons.”

Government Reaction

At a second meeting in the House of Commons, led by a opposition politician, and attended by the safeguarding minister, the bereaved relatives again told their stories.

A junior minister told the meeting: “These deaths are often dismissed as if they were their own choice, they opted for this, when, reality, these were the culmination of in fact, another person’s abuse, and these are not isolated stories.”

“Our law is broken, we know that,” she said. “Particularly around murder or unlawful killing, it is fragmented. It lacks statutory basis regardless, it has been developed with traditional legal customs for generations, and it is no longer fit for purpose, quite frankly, it’s the world we inhabit today.

“I will not claim that it’s going to be simple to resolve. It is incredibly complex and difficult, particularly when you consider the matter of homicide, but we recognize that it requires examination.”

Prosecution Service Statement

A representative for the prosecution service said: “Family violence is a heinous crime and our prosecutors are regularly instructed to consider murder and manslaughter charges in self-inflicted death instances where there is a established background of family violence or other controlling or coercive behavior.

“We have previously charged a several individuals for causing the death of a companion they abused, encompassing in proceedings which are ongoing.

“We are also working with law enforcement and other parties to guarantee these types of crimes are well-understood – so that we can bring perpetrators accountable for the full extent of their crimes.”