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Every suicide in which the deceased had experienced domestic violence should be treated as a potential homicide, as per calls from advocates who aim to make perpetrators responsible for the catastrophic consequences of their behavior.

This step is necessary because law enforcement are not doing enough to bring perpetrators accountable in cases of self-inflicted death following family violence.

“In case after case, there is widespread breakdown, especially within the legal system, to examine these deaths with the seriousness they warrant,” stated a leader of a campaign group during a significant gathering in London earlier this week.

The meeting, arranged by a group leading a “Self-Inflicted Death is Murder” initiative to advocate for change in the criminal justice system, brought together relatives who had suffered bereavement to self-inflicted death after domestic abuse.

Individual Accounts of Loss

One mother lost her daughter her 23-year-old daughter in March 2023. Before her death, Chloe had informed her former partner to police, submitting a lengthy recorded statement as proof about his conduct.

Following her passing, the individual was convicted of manipulative and domineering conduct and imprisoned for over three years. He was subsequently jailed for three years and seven months after a another victim came forward to report that she had been in a harmful partnership with him.

In the wake of her loss, the parent chose to advocate for a new law to bring perpetrators accountable; yet she then realized that laws were existing, they just weren’t often being used to achieve convictions.

“I concluded it wasn’t a fresh legislation I required as current statutes were already there, and after learning how much my daughter had been let down previous to her taking her life by the authorities and numerous services, they needed to fulfill their duties, and things needed to change,” she explained.

“Over 47 families have found me and only four of us have had a conviction,” she continued. “I was astonished to see so many families who have been fighting the police and CPS for years and receiving no resolution for their child or sibling and could not speak out in case it affected investigations that weren’t possibly going anywhere.”

Further Heartbreaking Account

One mother’s daughter her 30-year-old daughter died in spring 2017, in what she described as “the final act of violence” in a prolonged pattern of mistreatment.

“Hannah was vibrant, she was caring,” she stated. “She had great potential, and she was an amazing, really loving mother to her two children, and she took her own life after two years in a partnership where she was systematically destroyed by her partner,” she said.

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

“But I could not move on,” she said, “and I haven’t been able to move on. Honestly, she did not merely take her own life. She was murdered. She was killed slowly and deliberately over a two year period, and when I went to the police, when I begged them to investigate what he had done to her, I was informed that there was nothing that they were able to take.

“There was no investigation into her death. The domestic homicide review, which I had to struggle to obtain, required five years and changed nothing. A four day inquest determined death by suicide, despite substantial proof over a extremely distressing four day period of domestic abuse 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 emphasized the suicide is homicide movement was critical “since when someone takes their own life after they’ve endured family violence, we have to investigate it for what it really is, which is homicide.

“We must apply the laws we already possess 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 require determination, we need police to conduct thorough inquiries. We need the Crown Prosecution Service to take legal action. We need the judiciary to understand that words and control can kill just as much as physical force and arms.”

Government Reaction

At a second meeting in the Parliament, chaired by a Labour MP, and including the government official, the grieving families again shared their experiences.

A junior minister told the meeting: “These deaths are often dismissed 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 isolated stories.”

“Our law is broken, we are aware,” she said. “Especially around homicide or unlawful killing, it is piecemeal. It’s not written in statute anyway, it has been developed with common law practices for generations, and it is outdated, honestly, given the society we currently live in.

“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 issue of murder, but we recognize that it requires examination.”

Prosecution Service Statement

A representative for the prosecution service commented: “Domestic abuse is a terrible crime and our legal officers are regularly instructed to evaluate murder and manslaughter charges in suicide cases where there is a established background of domestic abuse or other controlling or coercive behavior.

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

“We are also working with law enforcement and other parties to ensure these types of crimes are well-understood – so that we can bring perpetrators accountable for the complete scope of their wrongdoings.”