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Every suicide where the victim had experienced abuse at home must be treated as a possible homicide, as per demands from advocates who seek to hold abusers accountable for the catastrophic impact of their behavior.

This move is essential because police and prosecutors are not doing enough to bring perpetrators accountable in cases of self-inflicted death after domestic abuse.

“In case after case, there is systemic and structural failure, especially within the legal system, to scrutinise these deaths with the gravity they warrant,” remarked a co-director of a advocacy organization during a significant meeting in London recently.

The assembly, organized by a organization running a “Self-Inflicted Death is Murder” initiative to advocate for reform in the criminal justice system, brought together families who had suffered bereavement to suicide following family violence.

Individual Accounts of Tragedy

Sharon Holland lost her daughter her 23-year-old daughter in March 2023. Before her death, Chloe had reported her ex-boyfriend to authorities, providing a two-hour video interview as evidence about his conduct.

Following her passing, the perpetrator was found guilty of manipulative and domineering conduct and jailed for 41 months. He was later sentenced for three years and seven months after a second woman came forward to report 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 new law to bring perpetrators to justice; however she then realized that regulations were already in place, they just were rarely applied to secure prosecutions.

“I concluded it wasn’t a new law I required as existing laws were in place, and after learning how much my daughter had been failed previous to her taking her life by the police and numerous services, they had to do their job properly, and things required reform,” she explained.

“Over 47 families have found me and only four of us have had a guilty verdict,” she added. “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 could not speak out in case it impacted investigations that were not progressing.”

Another Tragic Case

One mother’s child her 30-year-old daughter passed away in May 2017, in what she described as “the ultimate abusive action” in a campaign of abuse.

“She was energetic, she was loving,” she stated. “She had great potential, and she was an amazing, deeply devoted mum to her two children, and she died by suicide after two years in a relationship where she was systematically destroyed by her partner,” she said.

“She was physically beaten, she was psychologically tortured, she was dominated and dismantled piece by piece until she could not see a path ahead. The individual who caused this went unpunished, because we label it self-inflicted death, we close the file and we move on.

“Yet I was unable to continue,” she remarked, “and I haven’t been able to let go. In truth, Hannah didn’t just die by suicide. She was murdered. Her death was gradual and intentionally over a two year period, 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.

“There was no investigation into her passing. The domestic violence fatality analysis, which I had to struggle to obtain, took five years and had no impact. A lengthy coroner’s hearing found self-inflicted death, despite substantial proof over a extremely distressing multi-day session of domestic abuse and shortcomings 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 endured domestic abuse, we have to examine it for what it really is, which is homicide.

“We need to apply the laws we currently have properly and it is not occurring at the moment, and we need to hold abusers accountable for driving their victims to death.

“We have the laws. We require determination, we need law enforcement to conduct thorough inquiries. We need the Crown Prosecution Service to prosecute. We need the judiciary to recognize that words and control can kill just as much as physical force and arms.”

Political Response

At a follow-up gathering in the Parliament, led by a opposition politician, and attended by the safeguarding minister, the grieving families again told their stories.

A junior minister 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 actually, another person’s abuse, and these aren’t isolated stories.”

“Our law is broken, we are aware,” she stated. “Especially around murder or manslaughter, it is piecemeal. It lacks statutory basis anyway, it has been developed with common law practices for generations, 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 simple to resolve. It is extremely complicated and challenging, especially when you consider the matter of homicide, but we recognize that it requires examination.”

Prosecution Service Statement

A spokesperson for the legal body commented: “Domestic abuse is a heinous crime and our legal officers are actively advised to consider murder and manslaughter charges in suicide cases where there is a known context of family violence or other controlling or coercive behavior.

“We have previously charged a number of defendants for causing the death of a companion they abused, encompassing in cases which are ongoing.

“We are also working with police and other parties to guarantee these kinds of offences are well-understood – so that we can bring perpetrators to justice for the full extent of their wrongdoings.”