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Every suicide in which the victim had experienced domestic violence should be treated as a possible homicide, as per demands from advocates who seek to hold abusers responsible for the devastating consequences of their actions.

This move is necessary because police and prosecutors are not doing enough to bring perpetrators accountable in instances of self-inflicted death after family violence.

“In case after case, there is systemic and structural failure, especially within the legal system, to scrutinise these deaths with the seriousness they warrant,” stated a co-director of a campaign group at a significant gathering in Westminster recently.

The meeting, organized by a group leading a “Self-Inflicted Death is Murder” campaign to fight for change in the criminal justice system, brought together relatives who had suffered bereavement to suicide after family violence.

Individual Accounts of Tragedy

One mother lost her daughter Chloe Holland in spring 2023. Prior to her passing, Chloe had informed her former partner to authorities, providing a lengthy recorded statement as proof against him.

Following her passing, the individual was found guilty of coercive and controlling behavior and jailed for over three years. He was later sentenced for three years and seven months after a another victim came forward to disclose that she had been in a violent and abusive relationship with him.

After Chloe’s death, the mother decided to campaign for a new law to bring perpetrators to justice; however she then discovered that regulations were existing, they just weren’t often being used to achieve convictions.

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

“More than four dozen relatives have found me and just a handful of us have had a conviction,” she continued. “I was so shocked to see so many families who have been battling the police and prosecution service for years and getting no justice for their offspring or brother or sister and didn’t have a voice in case it affected inquiries that weren’t possibly going anywhere.”

Another Tragic Case

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

“Hannah was vibrant, she was caring,” she said. “She was full of promise, and she was an exceptional, really loving mother to her kids, and she took her own life after 24 months in a relationship where she was systematically destroyed by her companion,” she said.

“She was physically beaten, she was mentally tormented, she was controlled and dismantled gradually 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 move on.

“But I could not move on,” she said, “and I have not managed to let go. Honestly, Hannah didn’t just die by suicide. She was murdered. She was killed slowly and intentionally over a 24-month span, and when I went to the police, when I begged them to look into what he had done to her, I was told that there was no action that they could do.

“No inquiry was conducted into her death. The domestic homicide review, which I had to fight for, took five years and had no impact. A four day inquest determined 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 eight years she has “struggled against a system that refuses to see what is right in front of it”.

She emphasized the suicide is homicide campaign was critical “because when someone dies by suicide 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 currently have properly and it is not occurring at the present, and we need to make perpetrators responsible for driving their victims to death.

“We have the laws. We need the will, we need police to investigate properly. We need the prosecution authority to take legal action. We need the judiciary to recognize that words and control can cause death equally to hands and weapons.”

Government Reaction

At a follow-up gathering in the House of Commons, chaired by a Labour MP, and including the safeguarding minister, the bereaved relatives again told their stories.

A junior minister informed the assembly: “Such fatalities are often dismissed as if they were their decision, they chose to do this, when, in truth, these were the result of in fact, somebody else’s violence, and these are not isolated stories.”

“The legal system is flawed, we are aware,” she stated. “Especially around murder or manslaughter, it is fragmented. It lacks statutory basis anyway, it has been shaped 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 easy to fix. It is incredibly complex and challenging, particularly when you consider the matter of murder, but we recognize that it requires examination.”

Prosecution Service Statement

A spokesperson for the prosecution service commented: “Domestic abuse is a heinous crime and our legal officers are actively advised to consider homicide allegations in suicide cases where there is a known context of domestic abuse or other controlling or coercive behavior.

“We have previously charged a number of defendants for leading to the fatality of a companion they mistreated, encompassing in proceedings which are ongoing.

“We are collaborating with police and other stakeholders to guarantee these types of crimes are well-understood – so that we can hold offenders to justice for the complete scope of their crimes.”