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Each self-inflicted death in which the deceased had experienced abuse at home must be treated as a possible homicide, according to calls from advocates who seek to make perpetrators responsible for the catastrophic impact of their actions.

This step is necessary because police and prosecutors are failing to bring perpetrators accountable in cases of suicide following family violence.

“In case after case, there is widespread breakdown, especially within the legal system, to scrutinise these fatalities with the seriousness they deserve,” remarked a leader of a advocacy organization at a significant meeting in Westminster earlier this week.

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

Personal Stories of Loss

One mother lost her daughter Chloe Holland in spring 2023. Before her death, the young woman had reported her ex-boyfriend to authorities, providing a lengthy recorded statement as proof against him.

After her death, the individual was found guilty of coercive and controlling behavior and jailed for 41 months. He was subsequently sentenced for three years and seven months after a second woman stepped up to report that she had been in a harmful partnership with him.

In the wake of her loss, the mother chose to advocate for a legal change to bring perpetrators accountable; yet she then discovered that laws were already in place, they just were rarely applied to secure prosecutions.

“I decided it was not a new law I required as existing laws were already there, and after learning how much my child had been failed previous to her death by the authorities and numerous services, they needed to do their job properly, and things required reform,” she said.

“More than four dozen relatives have contacted 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 getting no justice for their offspring or brother or sister and didn’t have a voice in case it impacted investigations that weren’t possibly going anywhere.”

Another Tragic Case

One mother’s daughter Hannah passed away in May 2017, in what she described as “the ultimate abusive action” in a prolonged pattern of mistreatment.

“She was vibrant, she was caring,” she stated. “She was full of promise, and she was an amazing, really loving mum to her kids, and she died by suicide after 24 months 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 broken down piece by piece until she was unable to envision a way forward. The individual who caused this went unpunished, because we label it self-inflicted death, we close the file and we proceed.

“But I could not move on,” she said, “and I haven’t been able to let go. In truth, Hannah did not merely take her own life. She was killed. She was killed slowly and intentionally over a 24-month span, and when I went to the police, when I begged 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 death. The domestic violence fatality analysis, which I had to struggle to obtain, took five years and changed nothing. A four day inquest determined death by suicide, notwithstanding substantial proof over a extremely distressing multi-day session of domestic abuse and shortcomings by multiple services.”

The parent informed the gathering that for eight years she has “struggled against a establishment that refuses to see what is obvious”.

She emphasized the self-inflicted death is murder campaign was critical “since when an individual takes their own life after they’ve endured family violence, we have to investigate it for what it really is, which is murder.

“We need to use the legislation we currently have properly and it is not occurring at the present, and we need to make perpetrators responsible for driving their victims to death.

“The statutes exist. We need the will, we need police to investigate properly. We need the prosecution authority to prosecute. We need judges to recognize that words and control can kill equally to physical force and arms.”

Political Response

At a follow-up gathering in the Parliament, led by a opposition politician, and attended by the government official, the bereaved relatives again told their stories.

A junior minister informed the assembly: “Such fatalities are often dismissed as if they were their own choice, they opted for this, when, reality, these were the result of actually, another person’s abuse, and these aren’t rare incidents.”

“The legal system is flawed, we are aware,” she said. “Especially around homicide or manslaughter, it is piecemeal. It’s not written in statute regardless, it has been shaped with traditional legal customs for generations, and it is no longer fit for purpose, quite frankly, it’s the world we inhabit today.

“I will not claim that it’s going to be easy to fix. It is extremely complicated and challenging, especially when you look at the issue of murder, but we recognize that it requires examination.”

Legal Authority Comment

A spokesperson for the legal body said: “Family violence is a heinous offense and our prosecutors are regularly instructed to evaluate homicide allegations 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 companion they abused, including in proceedings which are currently active.

“We are also working with police and other parties to ensure these kinds of offences are clearly recognized – so that we can hold offenders accountable for the full extent of their wrongdoings.”