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Every suicide where the deceased had endured domestic violence must be considered a potential murder case, according to demands from advocates who aim to make perpetrators responsible for the devastating consequences of their actions.

This step is necessary because police and prosecutors are failing to bring perpetrators accountable in cases of suicide after domestic abuse.

“Time and again, there is widespread breakdown, especially within the legal system, to scrutinise these deaths with the gravity they warrant,” remarked a co-director of a advocacy organization at a landmark gathering in London earlier this week.

The assembly, organized by a group running a “Suicide is Homicide” initiative to advocate for change in the criminal justice system, united families who had suffered bereavement to self-inflicted death after family violence.

Personal Stories of Loss

One mother experienced the death of her child Chloe Holland in March 2023. Prior to her passing, Chloe had reported her former partner to police, submitting a lengthy recorded statement as evidence against him.

Following her passing, the perpetrator was convicted of coercive and controlling behavior and imprisoned for 41 months. He was subsequently jailed 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 mother chose to advocate for a new law to hold offenders accountable; however she then discovered that regulations were already in place, they just weren’t often being used to secure prosecutions.

“I decided it wasn’t a new law I required as existing laws were already there, and after finding out how much my child had been let down before her death by the police and numerous services, they had to fulfill their duties, and things needed to change,” she said.

“More than four dozen relatives 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 fighting the authorities and prosecution service for years and receiving no resolution for their offspring or brother or sister and could not speak out in case it impacted inquiries that weren’t possibly going anywhere.”

Further Heartbreaking Account

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

“Hannah was energetic, she was loving,” she said. “She had great potential, and she was an amazing, deeply devoted mum to her two children, and she took her own life after 24 months in a relationship where she was methodically broken down by her companion,” she said.

“She endured physical assaults, she was mentally tormented, she was controlled and broken down piece by piece until she could not see a way forward. The individual who caused this walked free, because we call 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 move on. Honestly, she did not merely take her own life. She was murdered. She was killed slowly and intentionally over a two year period, and when I went to the police, when I begged them to look into what he had inflicted upon her, I was told that there was no action that they were able to take.

“There was no investigation into her passing. The domestic homicide review, which I had to struggle to obtain, took five years and changed nothing. A lengthy coroner’s hearing found death by suicide, despite huge evidence over a extremely distressing four day period of domestic abuse and failings by various agencies.”

The mother told the meeting that for a decade she has “been fighting a system that ignores what is obvious”.

She emphasized the self-inflicted death is murder campaign was critical “since when someone dies by suicide after they’ve endured domestic abuse, we have to investigate it for what it really is, which is murder.

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

“We have the laws. We require determination, we need law enforcement to conduct thorough inquiries. We need the prosecution authority to take legal action. We need the judiciary to understand that verbal abuse and manipulation can cause death equally to hands and weapons.”

Political Response

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

A parliamentary under-secretary told the meeting: “Such fatalities are often written off as if they were their decision, they opted for this, when, in truth, these were the result of in fact, another person’s abuse, and these aren’t rare incidents.”

“The legal system is flawed, we are aware,” she said. “Particularly around murder or manslaughter, it is fragmented. It’s not written in statute anyway, it has been developed with traditional legal customs for generations, and it is no longer fit for purpose, quite frankly, given the society we inhabit today.

“I will not claim that it’s going to be easy to fix. It is extremely complicated and challenging, especially when you look at the matter of homicide, but we acknowledge that it requires examination.”

Prosecution Service Statement

A representative for the prosecution service commented: “Domestic abuse is a heinous offense and our legal officers are regularly instructed to evaluate 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 several individuals for leading to the fatality of a partner they mistreated, including in cases which are currently active.

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