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Every suicide where the victim had endured domestic violence should be treated as a potential murder case, as per calls from campaigners who aim to hold abusers responsible for the catastrophic consequences of their actions.

This step is necessary because police and prosecutors are not doing enough to hold offenders accountable in cases of suicide following family violence.

“In case after case, there is systemic and structural failure, particularly within the criminal justice system, to examine these deaths with the gravity they deserve,” stated a leader of a campaign group during a significant meeting in London recently.

The assembly, organized by a organization leading a “Self-Inflicted Death is Murder” campaign to advocate for change in the criminal justice system, united families who had suffered bereavement to self-inflicted death following domestic abuse.

Individual Accounts of Tragedy

One mother lost her daughter Chloe Holland in spring 2023. Before her death, the young woman had reported her former partner to authorities, providing a lengthy recorded statement as evidence about his conduct.

After her death, the perpetrator was found guilty of coercive and controlling behavior and imprisoned for over three years. He was subsequently sentenced for an additional term after a another victim stepped up to report that she had been in a violent and abusive relationship with him.

In the wake of her loss, the parent chose to advocate for a new law to hold offenders to justice; however she then realized that regulations were existing, they just weren’t often being used to secure prosecutions.

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

“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 such a large number who have been battling the authorities and prosecution service for a long time 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.”

Further Heartbreaking Account

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

“Hannah was energetic, she was loving,” she stated. “She had great potential, and she was an exceptional, deeply devoted mother to her kids, and she took her own life after two years in a partnership where she was systematically destroyed by her partner,” she explained.

“She endured physical assaults, she was psychologically tortured, she was dominated and dismantled gradually until she was unable to envision a path ahead. The individual who caused this walked free, because we call it self-inflicted death, we close the file and we proceed.

“But I could not move on,” she said, “and I have not managed to let go. Honestly, Hannah 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 pleaded with them to investigate what he had done to her, I was told that there was no action that they could do.

“No inquiry was conducted into her passing. The domestic violence fatality analysis, which I had to struggle to obtain, took five years and had no impact. A four day inquest found self-inflicted death, notwithstanding huge evidence over a very traumatic four day period of family violence and shortcomings by various agencies.”

The mother told the meeting that for eight years she has “been fighting a establishment that ignores what is right in front of it”.

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

“We need to use the legislation we currently have properly and it really isn’t happening at the moment, and we need to make perpetrators responsible for pushing their targets to suicide.

“The statutes exist. We require determination, we need police to investigate properly. We need the Crown Prosecution Service to take legal action. We need the judiciary to recognize that words and control can kill equally to hands and weapons.”

Government Reaction

At a follow-up gathering in the Parliament, chaired by a opposition politician, and attended by the safeguarding minister, the grieving families again told their stories.

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

“The legal system is flawed, we are aware,” she stated. “Particularly around murder or manslaughter, it is fragmented. It’s not written in statute regardless, it has been shaped with traditional legal customs for centuries, and it is outdated, 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 incredibly complex and challenging, particularly when you look at the matter of murder, but we acknowledge that it needs to be looked at.”

Legal Authority Comment

A spokesperson for the legal body said: “Family violence is a terrible crime and our prosecutors are actively advised to evaluate homicide allegations in suicide cases where there is a known context of domestic abuse or other manipulative conduct.

“We have in the past prosecuted a number of defendants for causing the death of a partner they mistreated, including in proceedings which are ongoing.

“We are also working with police and other parties to guarantee these types of crimes are well-understood – so that we can bring perpetrators to justice for the full extent of their crimes.”