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Each self-inflicted death in which the victim had endured domestic violence should be considered a possible homicide, according to demands from campaigners who seek to make perpetrators responsible for the devastating impact of their actions.

This step is necessary because police and prosecutors are not doing enough to bring perpetrators accountable in instances of self-inflicted death after family violence.

“In case after case, there is widespread breakdown, particularly within the criminal justice system, to scrutinise these deaths with the seriousness they warrant,” stated a leader of a advocacy organization at a landmark meeting in Westminster earlier this week.

The meeting, organized by a group running a “Suicide is Homicide” campaign to fight for reform in the legal framework, brought together relatives who had suffered bereavement to suicide after family violence.

Individual Accounts of Tragedy

Sharon Holland experienced the death of her child 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.

Following her passing, the perpetrator was found guilty of coercive and controlling behavior and jailed for over three years. He was later sentenced for three years and seven months after a another victim came forward to disclose that she had been in a violent and abusive relationship with him.

After Chloe’s death, the parent chose to advocate for a new law to bring perpetrators accountable; yet she then discovered that regulations were existing, they just were rarely applied 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 failed previous to her death by the authorities and many other agencies, they had to fulfill their duties, and things needed to change,” she said.

“More than four dozen relatives have found me and only four of us have had a conviction,” she added. “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 child or sibling and could not speak out in case it affected investigations 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 prolonged pattern of mistreatment.

“Hannah was vibrant, she was caring,” she stated. “She was full of promise, and she was an exceptional, deeply devoted mother 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 path ahead. The individual who did this to her went unpunished, because we call it suicide, we conclude the case and we proceed.

“Yet I was unable to continue,” she remarked, “and I haven’t been able to move on. In truth, she did not merely take her own life. She was murdered. Her death was gradual and intentionally over a 24-month span, and when I went to the police, when I pleaded with them to look into what he had done to her, I was told that there was no action that they were able to take.

“No inquiry was conducted into her passing. The domestic homicide review, which I had to struggle to obtain, took five years and had no impact. A four day inquest found self-inflicted death, despite substantial proof over a extremely distressing multi-day session of domestic abuse and failings by various agencies.”

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

She emphasized the suicide is homicide movement was critical “because when an individual dies by suicide after they’ve suffered domestic abuse, we have to investigate it for what it truly represents, which is homicide.

“We need to use the legislation we currently have properly 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 require determination, we need police to investigate properly. We need the prosecution authority to take legal action. We need judges to recognize that verbal abuse and manipulation can cause death just as much as hands and weapons.”

Government Reaction

At a follow-up gathering in the Parliament, led by a Labour MP, and attended by the government official, the grieving families again shared their experiences.

A junior minister told the meeting: “These deaths are often written off as if they were their decision, they opted for this, when, reality, these were the result of in fact, somebody else’s violence, and these aren’t rare incidents.”

“Our law is broken, we know that,” she said. “Especially around murder or unlawful killing, it is piecemeal. It lacks statutory basis anyway, it has been developed with traditional legal customs for centuries, and it is outdated, honestly, given the society we inhabit today.

“I will not claim that it’s going to be easy to fix. It is incredibly complex and difficult, especially when you look at the matter of homicide, but we acknowledge that it needs to be looked at.”

Legal Authority Comment

A spokesperson for the prosecution service commented: “Domestic abuse is a heinous crime and our legal officers are actively advised to consider murder and manslaughter charges in self-inflicted death instances where there is a established background of domestic abuse or other controlling or coercive behavior.

“We have in the past prosecuted a several individuals for leading to the fatality of a companion they mistreated, including in proceedings which are ongoing.

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