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Every suicide in which the deceased had experienced abuse at home should be treated as a possible homicide, according to calls from advocates who seek to make perpetrators accountable for the catastrophic consequences of their actions.

This step is essential because police and prosecutors are failing to hold offenders to justice in instances of self-inflicted death after domestic abuse.

“In case after case, there is widespread breakdown, particularly within the criminal justice system, to examine these deaths with the seriousness they warrant,” remarked a co-director of a campaign group at a landmark meeting in London recently.

The meeting, arranged by a group leading a “Self-Inflicted Death is Murder” campaign to advocate for change in the criminal justice system, united relatives who had lost loved ones to self-inflicted death following domestic abuse.

Personal Stories of Loss

One mother lost her daughter Chloe Holland in spring 2023. Prior to her passing, the young woman had informed her former partner to police, submitting a two-hour video interview as evidence about his conduct.

After her death, the individual was convicted of manipulative and domineering conduct and jailed for 41 months. He was subsequently jailed for three years and seven months after a second woman stepped up 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 new law to bring perpetrators accountable; yet she then discovered that regulations were already in place, they just were rarely applied to achieve convictions.

“I concluded it wasn’t a fresh legislation I needed as current statutes were in place, and after learning how much my daughter had been let down previous to her death by the authorities and many other agencies, they needed to do their job properly, and things 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 astonished to see such a large number who have been fighting the police and CPS for a long time and getting no justice for their child or brother or sister and could not speak out in case it affected investigations that were not progressing.”

Another Tragic Case

One mother’s child her 30-year-old daughter died in May 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 was full of promise, and she was an exceptional, deeply devoted mother to her kids, and she took her own life after 24 months in a partnership where she was methodically broken down by her partner,” she said.

“She was physically beaten, she was mentally tormented, she was controlled and broken down piece by piece until she could not see a way forward. The man who did this to her went unpunished, because we label it suicide, we conclude the case and we proceed.

“Yet I was unable to continue,” she said, “and I have not managed to move on. In truth, she didn’t just die by suicide. She was killed. Her death was gradual and deliberately over a two year period, and when I approached the authorities, when I pleaded with them to look into 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 violence fatality analysis, which I had to fight for, required five years and had no impact. A lengthy coroner’s hearing determined death by suicide, despite huge evidence over a very traumatic four day period of family violence and failings by multiple services.”

The mother informed the gathering that for eight years she has “struggled against a establishment that ignores what is right in front of it”.

She emphasized the suicide is homicide movement was vital “since when an individual takes their own life after they’ve suffered domestic abuse, we have to investigate it for what it really is, which is homicide.

“We must apply the laws we currently have effectively and it is not occurring at the moment, and we need to hold abusers accountable for pushing their targets to suicide.

“The statutes exist. 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 verbal abuse and manipulation can kill just as much as hands and weapons.”

Political Response

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

A junior minister informed the assembly: “Such fatalities are often written off as if they were their own choice, they chose to do this, when, reality, these were the culmination of actually, another person’s abuse, and these aren’t rare incidents.”

“The legal system is flawed, we are aware,” she said. “Especially around murder or unlawful killing, it is fragmented. It’s not written in statute anyway, it has been developed with common law practices for centuries, and it is outdated, honestly, it’s the world we inhabit today.

“I’m not going to pretend that it’s going to be easy to resolve. It is incredibly complex and difficult, especially when you consider the issue of murder, but we recognize that it requires examination.”

Prosecution Service Statement

A spokesperson for the legal body commented: “Domestic abuse is a terrible offense and our prosecutors are regularly instructed to evaluate homicide allegations 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 causing the death of a partner they mistreated, encompassing in proceedings which are currently active.

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