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Every suicide in which the deceased had endured domestic violence must be treated as a possible homicide, according to calls from campaigners who seek to hold abusers responsible for the devastating consequences of their behavior.

This move is essential because law enforcement are not doing enough to hold offenders to justice in instances of suicide after domestic abuse.

“In case after case, there is widespread breakdown, particularly within the legal system, to scrutinise these deaths with the gravity they warrant,” stated a co-director of a campaign group during a significant gathering in London earlier this week.

The meeting, organized by a organization running a “Suicide is Homicide” initiative to advocate for change in the criminal justice system, brought together relatives who had suffered bereavement to self-inflicted death following family violence.

Individual Accounts of Loss

Sharon Holland experienced the death of her child Chloe Holland in March 2023. Before her death, Chloe had informed her former partner to authorities, submitting a two-hour video interview 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 jailed for three years and seven months after a another victim came forward to report that she had been in a harmful partnership with him.

In the wake of her loss, the mother decided to campaign for a new law to bring perpetrators accountable; however she then realized that regulations were existing, they just were rarely applied to achieve convictions.

“I decided it was not a fresh legislation I needed as current statutes were already there, and after finding out how much my child had been let down before her death by the police and many other agencies, they had to fulfill their duties, and practices required reform,” she said.

“More than four dozen relatives have contacted me and just a handful of us have had a guilty verdict,” she continued. “I was so shocked to see so many families who have been battling the police and CPS for years and receiving no resolution for their child or sibling and could not speak out in case it impacted investigations that were not progressing.”

Another Tragic Case

One mother’s child Hannah passed away in May 2017, in what she called “the final act of violence” in a prolonged pattern of mistreatment.

“Hannah was vibrant, she was caring,” she said. “She had great potential, and she was an amazing, really loving mother to her two children, and she took her own life after 24 months in a partnership where she was systematically destroyed by her partner,” she explained.

“She endured physical assaults, she was psychologically tortured, she was dominated and dismantled gradually until she could not see a path ahead. The man who caused this walked free, because we label it suicide, we conclude the case and we move on.

“But I could not move on,” she remarked, “and I haven’t been able to let go. Honestly, she did not merely take her own life. 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 investigate what he had inflicted upon her, I was told that there was nothing that they were able to take.

“No inquiry was conducted into her passing. The domestic homicide review, which I had to struggle to obtain, took five years and had no impact. A four day inquest determined self-inflicted death, despite huge evidence over a extremely distressing four day period of domestic abuse and shortcomings by multiple services.”

The parent told the meeting that for a decade she has “struggled against a system that ignores what is obvious”.

She emphasized the self-inflicted death is murder movement was critical “because when someone takes their own life after they’ve endured domestic abuse, we have to investigate it for what it truly represents, which is homicide.

“We must apply the laws we already possess properly and it really isn’t happening at the present, and we need to hold abusers accountable for driving their victims to death.

“We have the laws. We need the will, we need law enforcement to conduct thorough inquiries. We need the prosecution authority to take legal action. We need judges to understand that words and control can kill just as much as hands and weapons.”

Government Reaction

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

A parliamentary under-secretary told the meeting: “Such fatalities are often dismissed as if they were their decision, they opted for this, when, reality, these were the culmination of actually, somebody else’s violence, and these aren’t isolated stories.”

“The legal system is flawed, we know that,” she stated. “Particularly around murder or unlawful killing, it is fragmented. It’s not written in statute regardless, it has been shaped with common law practices for generations, and it is no longer fit for purpose, quite frankly, given the society we currently live in.

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

Legal Authority Comment

A spokesperson for the legal body said: “Family violence is a heinous offense and our legal officers are regularly instructed 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 several individuals for leading to the fatality of a partner they abused, including in proceedings which are currently active.

“We are collaborating with police and other parties to ensure these kinds of offences are well-understood – so that we can bring perpetrators accountable for the complete scope of their wrongdoings.”