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Every suicide in which the victim had endured domestic violence should be considered a potential homicide, as per demands from campaigners who seek to hold abusers accountable for the catastrophic consequences of their behavior.

This move is essential because police and prosecutors are not doing enough to hold offenders accountable in cases of self-inflicted death after domestic abuse.

“In case after case, there is systemic and structural failure, especially within the criminal justice system, to examine these fatalities with the seriousness they deserve,” remarked a leader of a advocacy organization during a significant gathering in London recently.

The assembly, organized by a group leading a “Self-Inflicted Death is Murder” initiative to advocate for reform in the criminal justice system, united families who had lost loved ones to self-inflicted death following domestic abuse.

Personal Stories of Loss

Sharon Holland lost her daughter Chloe Holland in March 2023. Prior to her passing, the young woman had informed her ex-boyfriend to authorities, submitting a two-hour video interview as evidence about his conduct.

Following her passing, the individual was found guilty of manipulative and domineering conduct and jailed 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; yet she then realized that laws were existing, they just were rarely applied to achieve convictions.

“I decided it was not a new law I needed as existing laws were already there, and after learning how much my daughter had been failed before her taking her life by the authorities and many other agencies, they had to fulfill their duties, and practices required reform,” she explained.

“Over 47 families have contacted me and just a handful of us have had a guilty verdict,” she added. “I was so shocked to see so many families who have been fighting the police and CPS for a long time and receiving no resolution for their offspring or brother or sister and didn’t have a voice in case it affected investigations that were not progressing.”

Another Tragic Case

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

“Hannah was vibrant, she was loving,” she stated. “She was full of promise, and she was an amazing, deeply devoted mum 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 psychologically tortured, she was controlled and broken down piece by piece until she could not see a way forward. The individual who did this to her went unpunished, because we call it suicide, we close the file and we proceed.

“But I could not move on,” 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 intentionally over a 24-month span, and when I went to the police, when I begged them to look into what he had done to her, I was informed that there was no action that they were able to take.

“No inquiry was conducted into her passing. The domestic violence fatality analysis, which I had to fight for, took five years and had no impact. A four day inquest found death by suicide, notwithstanding huge evidence over a extremely distressing multi-day session of domestic abuse and shortcomings by various agencies.”

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

She said the self-inflicted death is murder movement was critical “since when someone takes their own life after they’ve endured domestic abuse, we have to examine it for what it really is, which is homicide.

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

“We have the laws. We require determination, we need law enforcement to investigate properly. We need the prosecution authority to prosecute. We need judges to understand that verbal abuse and manipulation can cause death just as much as hands and weapons.”

Political Response

At a follow-up gathering in the Parliament, chaired by a Labour MP, and including the government official, the bereaved relatives again told their stories.

A junior minister informed the assembly: “These deaths are often dismissed as if they were their own choice, they chose to do this, when, in truth, these were the culmination of actually, another person’s abuse, and these aren’t rare incidents.”

“Our law is broken, we are aware,” she said. “Particularly around homicide or unlawful killing, it is piecemeal. It lacks statutory basis regardless, it has been developed with traditional legal customs for generations, and it is no longer fit for purpose, quite frankly, it’s the world we currently live in.

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

Prosecution Service Statement

A spokesperson for the prosecution service commented: “Family violence is a terrible offense and our legal officers are actively advised to consider homicide allegations in self-inflicted death instances where there is a known context of domestic abuse or other controlling or coercive behavior.

“We have previously charged a number of defendants for causing the death of a companion they mistreated, encompassing in cases which are ongoing.

“We are also working with police and other stakeholders to guarantee these types of crimes are clearly recognized – so that we can bring perpetrators accountable for the full extent of their crimes.”