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Every suicide where the deceased had experienced domestic violence must be considered a possible murder case, according to demands from campaigners who seek to hold abusers accountable for the devastating impact of their behavior.

This move is essential because police and prosecutors are failing to hold offenders to justice in instances of suicide following family violence.

“Time and again, there is widespread breakdown, especially within the criminal justice system, to examine these deaths with the seriousness they deserve,” remarked a leader of a advocacy organization during a landmark meeting in Westminster recently.

The assembly, arranged by a group leading a “Self-Inflicted Death is Murder” campaign to fight for change in the criminal justice system, brought together families who had lost loved ones to self-inflicted death following family violence.

Individual Accounts of Tragedy

Sharon Holland lost her daughter her 23-year-old daughter in spring 2023. Prior to her passing, Chloe had informed her former partner to police, submitting a two-hour video interview as evidence against him.

Following her passing, the individual was convicted of manipulative and domineering conduct and jailed for over three years. He was later jailed for three years and seven months after a second woman came forward to report that she had been in a harmful partnership with him.

After Chloe’s death, the mother decided to campaign for a new law to hold offenders accountable; yet she then realized that regulations were already in place, they just were rarely applied to secure prosecutions.

“I concluded it wasn’t a fresh legislation I needed as current statutes were already there, and after finding out how much my child had been failed previous to her death by the police and numerous services, they had to fulfill their duties, and practices required reform,” she said.

“Over 47 families have found 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 authorities and prosecution service for a long time and receiving no resolution for their offspring or sibling and didn’t have a voice in case it impacted investigations that weren’t possibly going anywhere.”

Further Heartbreaking Account

One mother’s child Hannah passed away in spring 2017, in what she described as “the ultimate abusive action” in a campaign of abuse.

“Hannah was energetic, she was caring,” she stated. “She was full of promise, and she was an amazing, really loving mum to her two children, and she died by suicide after two years in a relationship where she was methodically broken down by her companion,” she said.

“She was physically beaten, she was psychologically tortured, she was dominated and dismantled gradually until she was unable to envision a way forward. The individual who did this to her went unpunished, because we label it self-inflicted death, we close the file and we move on.

“But I could not move on,” 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 two year period, and when I approached the authorities, when I begged them to look into what he had inflicted upon her, I was informed that there was nothing that they could do.

“No inquiry was conducted into her death. The domestic homicide review, which I had to struggle to obtain, required five years and had no impact. A lengthy coroner’s hearing found self-inflicted death, despite substantial proof 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 system that refuses to see what is obvious”.

She said the suicide is homicide movement was vital “because when an individual dies by suicide after they’ve suffered 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 pushing their targets to suicide.

“We have the laws. We need the will, we need police to conduct thorough inquiries. We need the prosecution authority to prosecute. We need judges to understand that verbal abuse and manipulation can cause death just as much as physical force and arms.”

Government Reaction

At a follow-up gathering in the House of Commons, led by a opposition politician, and including the government official, the grieving families again told their stories.

A junior minister informed the assembly: “These deaths are often written off as if they were their own choice, they chose to do this, when, in truth, these were the result of in fact, somebody else’s violence, and these are not isolated stories.”

“The legal system is flawed, we know that,” she said. “Especially around homicide or unlawful killing, it is piecemeal. It lacks statutory basis anyway, it has been shaped with traditional legal customs for centuries, and it is outdated, quite frankly, given the society we inhabit today.

“I will not claim that it’s going to be simple to resolve. It is extremely complicated and challenging, especially when you look at the matter of murder, but we recognize that it needs to be looked at.”

Legal Authority Comment

A spokesperson for the prosecution service commented: “Family violence is a terrible offense and our prosecutors are actively advised to evaluate murder and manslaughter charges in suicide cases where there is a established background of domestic abuse or other manipulative conduct.

“We have in the past prosecuted a several individuals for causing the death of a companion they abused, including in cases which are currently active.

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