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Each self-inflicted death in which the deceased had endured domestic violence should be treated as a potential homicide, as per demands from campaigners who seek to hold abusers responsible for the devastating impact of their actions.

This move is essential because law enforcement are failing to hold offenders to justice in cases of suicide following domestic abuse.

“In case after case, there is systemic and structural failure, especially within the criminal justice system, to scrutinise these deaths with the gravity they warrant,” remarked a leader of a advocacy organization at a landmark gathering in Westminster earlier this week.

The assembly, organized by a organization running a “Suicide is Homicide” initiative to fight for change in the legal framework, brought together relatives who had suffered bereavement to suicide after family violence.

Individual Accounts of Tragedy

One mother lost her daughter her 23-year-old daughter in spring 2023. Prior to her passing, Chloe had informed her former partner to authorities, providing a two-hour video interview as evidence against him.

After her death, the perpetrator was found guilty of manipulative and domineering conduct and imprisoned for 41 months. He was subsequently jailed for an additional term 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 mother decided to campaign for a legal change to bring perpetrators accountable; yet she then discovered that regulations were already in place, they just weren’t often being used to achieve convictions.

“I decided it was not a new law I needed as current statutes were already there, and after finding out how much my child had been let down before her taking her life by the authorities and numerous services, they needed to fulfill their duties, and practices needed to change,” she said.

“Over 47 families have contacted me and only four of us have had a guilty verdict,” she continued. “I was astonished to see such a large number who have been battling the authorities and CPS for a long time and getting no justice for their child or brother or sister and could not speak out in case it affected inquiries that weren’t possibly going anywhere.”

Another Tragic Case

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

“Hannah was vibrant, she was loving,” she said. “She was full of promise, and she was an amazing, deeply devoted mum to her kids, and she died by suicide after 24 months in a partnership where she was methodically broken down by her companion,” she said.

“She was physically beaten, she was psychologically tortured, she was controlled and broken down gradually until she could not see a way forward. The individual who did this to her went unpunished, because we call it self-inflicted death, we close the file and we move on.

“But I could not move on,” she remarked, “and I have not managed to let go. In truth, she didn’t just die by suicide. She was murdered. She was killed slowly 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 could do.

“No inquiry was conducted into her passing. The domestic homicide review, which I had to struggle to obtain, required five years and changed nothing. A four day inquest determined self-inflicted death, notwithstanding huge evidence over a extremely distressing multi-day session of domestic abuse and failings by various agencies.”

The mother informed the gathering that for eight years she has “struggled against a system that ignores what is obvious”.

She emphasized the self-inflicted death is murder campaign was critical “because when someone dies by suicide after they’ve endured family violence, we have to examine it for what it really is, which is homicide.

“We must apply the laws we currently have effectively and it is not occurring at the moment, 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 verbal abuse and manipulation can cause death just as much as hands and weapons.”

Political Response

At a follow-up gathering in the House of Commons, led by a opposition politician, and attended by the safeguarding minister, 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 know that,” she stated. “Particularly around homicide or unlawful killing, it is fragmented. It’s not written in statute anyway, it has been shaped with traditional legal customs for centuries, and it is outdated, honestly, it’s the world we currently live in.

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

Prosecution Service Statement

A spokesperson for the prosecution service said: “Domestic abuse is a heinous crime and our legal officers are regularly instructed to evaluate homicide allegations in suicide cases where there is a established background of domestic abuse or other manipulative conduct.

“We have in the past prosecuted a number of defendants for leading to the fatality of a companion they abused, encompassing in cases which are currently active.

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