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Every suicide where the deceased had endured abuse at home must be treated as a possible murder case, according to demands from advocates who aim to make perpetrators accountable for the devastating consequences of their behavior.

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

“Time and again, there is widespread breakdown, especially within the criminal justice system, to examine these fatalities with the gravity they warrant,” remarked a co-director of a campaign group during a landmark meeting in London recently.

The assembly, organized by a organization running a “Self-Inflicted Death is Murder” campaign to advocate for change in the legal framework, united relatives who had lost loved ones to suicide following domestic abuse.

Personal Stories of Loss

One mother lost her daughter Chloe Holland in spring 2023. Before her death, the young woman had reported her former partner to police, providing a two-hour video interview as evidence about his conduct.

After her death, the individual was convicted of manipulative and domineering conduct and imprisoned for 41 months. He was subsequently 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.

After Chloe’s death, the mother decided to campaign for a legal change to hold offenders to justice; yet she then discovered that laws were existing, they just weren’t often being used to achieve convictions.

“I concluded it was not a new law I needed as current statutes were in place, and after finding out how much my child had been let down previous to her death by the authorities and numerous services, they needed to do their job properly, and practices required reform,” she explained.

“Over 47 families have found me and just a handful of us have had a guilty verdict,” she added. “I was so shocked to see such a large number who have been fighting the authorities and prosecution service for years and getting no justice for their child or brother or sister and didn’t have a voice in case it affected inquiries that weren’t possibly going anywhere.”

Further Heartbreaking Account

One mother’s daughter Hannah died in May 2017, in what she described as “the final act of violence” in a campaign of abuse.

“Hannah was energetic, she was loving,” she said. “She had great potential, and she was an exceptional, really loving mother to her two children, and she died by suicide after 24 months in a relationship where she was systematically destroyed by her partner,” she said.

“She endured physical assaults, she was mentally tormented, she was dominated and broken down piece by piece until she was unable to envision a path ahead. The man who did this to her went unpunished, because we call it suicide, we close the file and we proceed.

“But I could not move on,” she remarked, “and I have not managed to let go. In truth, she did not merely take her own life. She was killed. She was killed slowly and deliberately over a 24-month span, and when I went to the police, when I begged them to investigate what he had done to 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 four day inquest found self-inflicted death, notwithstanding huge evidence over a extremely distressing multi-day session of domestic abuse and failings by various agencies.”

The parent informed the gathering that for eight years she has “struggled against a system that refuses to see what is obvious”.

She emphasized the suicide is homicide campaign was vital “since when an individual 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 driving their victims to death.

“The statutes exist. We need the will, we need law enforcement to investigate properly. We need the prosecution authority to take legal action. We need the judiciary to understand that words and control can kill equally to hands and weapons.”

Political Response

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

A parliamentary under-secretary informed the assembly: “These deaths are often written off as if they were their own choice, they chose to do this, when, reality, these were the culmination of in fact, another person’s abuse, and these are not rare incidents.”

“The legal system is flawed, we know that,” she stated. “Especially around murder or manslaughter, it is fragmented. It lacks statutory basis anyway, it has been developed with common law practices for centuries, and it is outdated, quite frankly, it’s the world we inhabit today.

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

Legal Authority Comment

A spokesperson for the prosecution service commented: “Family violence is a terrible offense 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 manipulative conduct.

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

“We are also working with police and other parties to ensure these kinds of offences are clearly recognized – so that we can hold offenders accountable for the full extent of their crimes.”