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Every suicide in which the deceased had experienced abuse at home must be treated as a potential murder case, as per demands from campaigners who seek to hold abusers accountable for the catastrophic impact of their behavior.

This step is essential because law enforcement are failing to hold offenders to justice in cases of suicide following family violence.

“Time and again, there is widespread breakdown, particularly within the legal system, to scrutinise these deaths with the seriousness they deserve,” stated a co-director of a campaign group during a significant gathering in Westminster recently.

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

Personal Stories of Loss

Sharon Holland experienced the death of her child her 23-year-old daughter in March 2023. Before her death, Chloe had reported 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 later sentenced for an additional term after a another victim stepped up to disclose that she had been in a violent and abusive relationship with him.

In the wake of her loss, the parent decided to campaign for a legal change to bring perpetrators accountable; yet she then realized that laws were existing, they just were rarely applied to secure prosecutions.

“I decided it wasn’t a fresh legislation I needed as current statutes were in place, and after finding out how much my daughter had been let down before her taking her life by the authorities and numerous services, they had to fulfill their duties, and practices required reform,” she explained.

“Over 47 families have found me and only four of us have had a conviction,” she continued. “I was so shocked to see such a large number who have been battling the police 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 affected inquiries that were not progressing.”

Another Tragic Case

One mother’s daughter Hannah passed away in spring 2017, in what she described as “the ultimate abusive action” in a prolonged pattern of mistreatment.

“Hannah was vibrant, she was loving,” she said. “She was full of promise, and she was an exceptional, deeply devoted mother to her kids, and she took her own life after two years in a partnership where she was systematically destroyed by her partner,” she explained.

“She was physically beaten, she was mentally tormented, she was controlled and broken down gradually until she was unable to envision a way forward. The individual who did this to her went unpunished, because we call it suicide, we close the file and we proceed.

“Yet I was unable to continue,” she remarked, “and I haven’t been able to move on. Honestly, Hannah didn’t just die by suicide. She was murdered. Her death was gradual and deliberately over a 24-month span, and when I approached the authorities, when I begged them to look into what he had inflicted upon her, I was informed that there was nothing that they were able to take.

“No inquiry was conducted into her passing. The domestic violence fatality analysis, which I had to struggle to obtain, required five years and changed nothing. A four day inquest found self-inflicted death, despite huge evidence over a extremely distressing four day period of domestic abuse and failings by various agencies.”

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

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

“We must apply the laws we currently have properly 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 prosecute. We need judges to understand that words and control can cause death just as much as hands and weapons.”

Political Response

At a follow-up gathering in the Parliament, led by a Labour MP, and including the government official, the grieving families again told their stories.

A parliamentary under-secretary informed the assembly: “Such fatalities are often dismissed as if they were their decision, they opted for this, when, in truth, these were the result of in fact, somebody else’s violence, and these aren’t isolated stories.”

“The legal system is flawed, we know that,” she said. “Especially around murder or unlawful killing, it is fragmented. It lacks statutory basis anyway, it has been developed with traditional legal customs for centuries, and it is outdated, quite frankly, given the society we currently live in.

“I will not claim that it’s going to be simple to fix. It is incredibly complex and challenging, particularly when you look at the issue of murder, but we recognize that it needs to be looked at.”

Legal Authority Comment

A representative for the legal body commented: “Family violence is a heinous crime and our prosecutors are actively advised to consider homicide allegations in self-inflicted death instances where there is a established background of family violence or other manipulative conduct.

“We have previously charged a number of defendants for leading to the fatality of a partner they mistreated, encompassing in cases which are currently active.

“We are collaborating with law enforcement and other stakeholders to guarantee these kinds of offences are clearly recognized – so that we can bring perpetrators accountable for the complete scope of their crimes.”