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Every suicide where the victim had endured domestic violence must be treated as a possible homicide, according to calls from advocates who aim to hold abusers responsible for the catastrophic consequences of their behavior.

This move is necessary because law enforcement are not doing enough to hold offenders to justice in instances of suicide after family violence.

“In case after case, there is widespread breakdown, especially within the criminal justice system, to scrutinise these deaths with the gravity they warrant,” stated a co-director of a campaign group during a significant gathering in London earlier this week.

The assembly, arranged by a group running a “Self-Inflicted Death is Murder” initiative to advocate for reform in the criminal justice system, united families who had suffered bereavement to suicide following family violence.

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, providing a lengthy recorded statement as proof against him.

After her death, the perpetrator was found guilty of coercive and controlling behavior and imprisoned for 41 months. He was subsequently jailed for an additional term after a another victim came forward to report that she had been in a violent and abusive relationship with him.

In the wake of her loss, the mother decided to campaign for a legal change to hold offenders accountable; yet she then discovered that regulations were existing, they just weren’t often being used to secure prosecutions.

“I concluded it wasn’t a fresh legislation I required as existing laws were in place, and after learning how much my daughter had been failed previous to her death by the police and many other agencies, they needed to do their job properly, and practices needed to change,” she said.

“Over 47 families have contacted me and only four of us have had a guilty verdict,” she added. “I was astonished to see such a large number who have been battling the authorities and CPS for years and receiving no resolution for their offspring or brother or sister and could not speak out in case it affected inquiries that weren’t possibly going anywhere.”

Another Tragic Case

One mother’s child Hannah passed away in May 2017, in what she called “the final act of violence” in a campaign of abuse.

“She was vibrant, she was caring,” she stated. “She was full of promise, and she was an exceptional, really loving mother to her two children, and she took her own life after two years in a relationship 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 individual who did this to her walked free, because we label it self-inflicted death, we close the file and we proceed.

“Yet I was unable to continue,” she said, “and I haven’t been able to let go. In truth, she did not merely take her own life. She was killed. Her death was gradual and deliberately over a two year period, and when I approached the authorities, when I begged them to look into what he had done to her, I was told that there was nothing that they could do.

“No inquiry was conducted into her death. The domestic homicide review, which I had to struggle to obtain, took five years and had no impact. A four day inquest determined self-inflicted death, despite substantial proof over a extremely distressing four day period of family violence and shortcomings by multiple services.”

The parent informed the gathering that for a decade she has “been fighting a system that ignores what is right in front of it”.

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

“We need to use the legislation we already possess effectively and it is not occurring at the moment, 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 Crown Prosecution Service to prosecute. We need the judiciary to recognize that words and control can kill equally to physical force and arms.”

Political Response

At a second meeting in the Parliament, led by a opposition politician, and including the safeguarding minister, the bereaved relatives again shared their experiences.

A junior minister told the meeting: “Such fatalities are often dismissed as if they were their own choice, they opted for this, when, reality, these were the result of in fact, another person’s abuse, and these are not isolated stories.”

“Our law is broken, we know that,” 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 no longer fit for purpose, quite frankly, it’s the world we inhabit today.

“I’m not going to pretend that it’s going to be easy to resolve. It is extremely complicated and challenging, particularly when you consider the matter of homicide, but we acknowledge that it needs to be looked at.”

Prosecution Service Statement

A spokesperson for the legal body said: “Family violence is a heinous crime and our prosecutors are regularly instructed to evaluate 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 several individuals for leading to the fatality of a partner they abused, including in cases which are ongoing.

“We are also working with police and other stakeholders to ensure these types of crimes are clearly recognized – so that we can hold offenders to justice for the complete scope of their crimes.”