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Each self-inflicted death in which the victim had endured domestic violence should be considered a possible murder case, as per demands from campaigners who aim to hold abusers responsible for the catastrophic impact of their actions.

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

“In case after case, there is systemic and structural failure, especially within the legal system, to examine these deaths with the seriousness they warrant,” stated a co-director of a campaign group at a landmark meeting in Westminster earlier this week.

The assembly, organized by a group leading a “Suicide is Homicide” initiative to fight for change in the legal framework, united relatives who had lost loved ones to self-inflicted death following domestic abuse.

Individual Accounts of Loss

One mother lost her daughter Chloe Holland in March 2023. Before her death, the young woman had informed her former partner to police, providing a lengthy recorded statement as evidence against him.

After her death, the perpetrator was found guilty of manipulative and domineering conduct and imprisoned for 41 months. He was subsequently sentenced for three years and seven months after a another victim stepped up to disclose that she had been in a harmful partnership with him.

In the wake of her loss, the parent decided to campaign for a new law to hold offenders accountable; yet she then discovered that laws were existing, they just were rarely applied to achieve convictions.

“I concluded it wasn’t a new law I required as current statutes were already there, and after finding out how much my child had been let down before her taking her life by the police and numerous services, they had to do their job properly, and things required reform,” she explained.

“More than four dozen relatives have found me and only four of us have had a conviction,” she continued. “I was so shocked to see so many families who have been battling the authorities and CPS for years and receiving no resolution for their offspring or brother or sister and didn’t have a voice in case it impacted inquiries that weren’t possibly going anywhere.”

Another Tragic Case

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

“She was energetic, she was caring,” she stated. “She was full of promise, and she was an exceptional, really loving mum to her two children, and she died by suicide after 24 months in a partnership where she was systematically destroyed by her partner,” she explained.

“She was physically beaten, she was psychologically tortured, she was dominated and broken down gradually until she could not see a path ahead. The man who did this to her went unpunished, because we call it suicide, we conclude the case and we proceed.

“Yet I was unable to continue,” she said, “and I haven’t been able to let go. Honestly, she didn’t just die by suicide. She was killed. She was killed slowly and deliberately over a two year period, 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 could do.

“There was no investigation into her death. The domestic violence fatality analysis, which I had to struggle to obtain, took five years and had no impact. A four day inquest found death by suicide, notwithstanding huge evidence over a extremely distressing four day period of domestic abuse and shortcomings by multiple services.”

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

She said the suicide is homicide campaign was vital “because when someone takes their own life after they’ve suffered family violence, we have to investigate it for what it really is, which is murder.

“We need to apply the laws we currently have properly and it is not occurring at the moment, and we need to hold abusers accountable for driving their victims to death.

“We have the laws. We need the will, we need police to conduct thorough inquiries. We need the Crown Prosecution Service to take legal action. We need judges to recognize that words and control can cause death just as much as physical force and arms.”

Government Reaction

At a follow-up gathering in the House of Commons, chaired by a opposition politician, and including the safeguarding minister, the grieving families again shared their experiences.

A junior minister told the meeting: “Such fatalities are often written off as if they were their decision, they opted for this, when, in truth, these were the culmination of actually, somebody else’s violence, and these are not rare incidents.”

“Our law is broken, we are aware,” she stated. “Particularly around homicide or unlawful killing, it is piecemeal. It’s not written in statute regardless, it has been shaped with common law practices for generations, and it is outdated, honestly, it’s the world we inhabit today.

“I will not claim that it’s going to be simple to resolve. It is extremely complicated and challenging, particularly when you consider the issue of homicide, but we acknowledge that it requires examination.”

Legal Authority Comment

A spokesperson for the prosecution service commented: “Family violence is a heinous offense and our prosecutors are actively advised to evaluate murder and manslaughter charges in self-inflicted death instances where there is a known context of family violence or other controlling or coercive behavior.

“We have previously charged a number of defendants for leading to the fatality of a partner they abused, encompassing in cases which are currently active.

“We are collaborating with police and other parties to ensure these types of crimes are clearly recognized – so that we can hold offenders to justice for the full extent of their crimes.”