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Every suicide in which the deceased had endured abuse at home should be considered a potential homicide, according to calls from advocates who seek to hold abusers responsible for the devastating consequences of their behavior.

This step is necessary because law enforcement are not doing enough to hold offenders to justice in instances of self-inflicted death following domestic abuse.

“In case after case, there is widespread breakdown, especially within the legal system, to examine these deaths with the gravity they deserve,” remarked a leader of a campaign group at a landmark meeting in Westminster earlier this week.

The meeting, organized by a organization running a “Suicide is Homicide” campaign to fight for change in the criminal justice system, brought together families who had suffered bereavement to self-inflicted death after domestic abuse.

Individual Accounts of Tragedy

One mother lost her daughter Chloe Holland in spring 2023. Prior to her passing, Chloe had reported her former partner to police, submitting a lengthy recorded statement as evidence about his conduct.

Following her passing, the individual was convicted of manipulative and domineering conduct and imprisoned for over three years. He was later sentenced for an additional term after a second woman came forward to disclose that she had been in a violent and abusive relationship with him.

After Chloe’s death, the parent decided to campaign for a legal change to hold offenders accountable; however she then discovered that regulations were already in place, they just weren’t often being used to achieve convictions.

“I concluded it was not a new law I required as current statutes were already there, and after learning how much my child had been failed before her death by the authorities and many other agencies, they had to do their job properly, and practices needed to change,” she explained.

“Over 47 families have found me and only four of us have had a guilty verdict,” she added. “I was so shocked to see such a large number who have been fighting the police and prosecution service for a long time and receiving no resolution for their offspring or brother or sister and could not speak out in case it affected investigations that were not progressing.”

Another Tragic Case

One mother’s daughter Hannah died in May 2017, in what she described as “the ultimate abusive action” in a campaign of abuse.

“She was energetic, she was caring,” she said. “She was full of promise, and she was an exceptional, 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 companion,” she explained.

“She was physically beaten, she was psychologically tortured, she was controlled and dismantled piece by piece until she could not see a path ahead. The individual who did this to her went unpunished, because we call it self-inflicted death, we conclude the case and we move on.

“Yet I was unable to continue,” she said, “and I have not managed to let go. In truth, Hannah 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 pleaded with them to look into what he had done to her, I was informed that there was no action 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 four day inquest determined death by suicide, notwithstanding huge evidence over a very traumatic multi-day session of family violence and failings by various agencies.”

The mother told the meeting that for a decade she has “been fighting a system that ignores what is right in front of it”.

She said the self-inflicted death is murder campaign was critical “because when an individual takes their own life after they’ve suffered family violence, we have to examine it for what it truly represents, which is homicide.

“We must use the legislation we currently have effectively and it really isn’t happening at the present, and we need to hold abusers accountable for pushing their targets to suicide.

“The statutes exist. We need the will, we need law enforcement to investigate properly. We need the Crown Prosecution Service to prosecute. We need judges to recognize that words and control can cause death just as much as physical force and arms.”

Political Response

At a second meeting in the Parliament, led by a Labour MP, and attended by the government official, the bereaved relatives again shared their experiences.

A junior minister informed the assembly: “These deaths are often dismissed as if they were their own choice, they opted for this, when, reality, these were the result of in fact, somebody else’s violence, and these aren’t rare incidents.”

“Our law is broken, we know that,” she stated. “Particularly around homicide or manslaughter, it is piecemeal. It lacks statutory basis anyway, it has been developed with traditional legal customs for generations, and it is no longer fit for purpose, honestly, given the society we currently live in.

“I’m not going to pretend that it’s going to be easy to fix. It is incredibly complex and challenging, particularly when you look at the issue of homicide, but we recognize that it requires examination.”

Prosecution Service Statement

A representative for the prosecution service said: “Family violence is a heinous offense and our prosecutors are regularly instructed 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 causing the death of a partner they abused, encompassing in proceedings which are currently active.

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