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Every suicide in which the victim had endured domestic violence should be considered a potential murder case, as per calls from campaigners who seek to make perpetrators accountable for the devastating consequences of their behavior.

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

“In case after case, there is systemic and structural failure, especially within the criminal justice system, to scrutinise these deaths with the seriousness they deserve,” remarked a co-director of a advocacy organization at a significant gathering in Westminster recently.

The assembly, organized by a organization leading a “Suicide is Homicide” campaign to advocate for change in the legal framework, united relatives who had lost loved ones to suicide after domestic abuse.

Individual Accounts of Loss

One mother lost her daughter her 23-year-old daughter in spring 2023. Before her death, Chloe had informed her ex-boyfriend to authorities, providing a two-hour video interview as proof about his conduct.

Following her passing, the perpetrator was found guilty of coercive and controlling behavior and jailed for 41 months. He was subsequently jailed for three years and seven months after a second woman stepped up to disclose that she had been in a violent and abusive relationship with him.

In the wake of her loss, the mother chose to advocate for a legal change to bring perpetrators accountable; yet she then realized that laws were already in place, they just weren’t often being used to secure prosecutions.

“I concluded it wasn’t a new law I needed as existing laws were already there, and after learning how much my daughter had been let down before her taking her life by the police and many other agencies, they needed to fulfill their duties, and things needed to change,” she explained.

“More than four dozen relatives have contacted me and just a handful of us have had a conviction,” she added. “I was so shocked to see such a large number who have been battling the authorities and CPS for a long time and getting no justice for their offspring or sibling and didn’t have a voice in case it affected investigations that weren’t possibly going anywhere.”

Another Tragic Case

One mother’s daughter Hannah passed away in May 2017, in what she described as “the final act of violence” in a prolonged pattern of mistreatment.

“She was vibrant, she was caring,” she said. “She was full of promise, and she was an amazing, really loving mum to her two children, and she took her own life 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 controlled and broken down piece by piece until she was unable to envision a path ahead. The man who caused this walked free, because we label it suicide, we close the file and we move on.

“But I could not move on,” she said, “and I have not managed to let go. Honestly, Hannah did not merely take her own life. She was murdered. Her death was gradual and deliberately 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 informed that there was nothing that they could do.

“There was no investigation into her passing. The domestic homicide review, which I had to struggle to obtain, required five years and had no impact. A four day inquest determined death by suicide, despite substantial proof over a very traumatic four day period of family violence and failings by multiple services.”

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

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

“We must use the legislation 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.

“We have the laws. We require determination, we need police to conduct thorough inquiries. We need the prosecution authority to prosecute. We need the judiciary to recognize that words and control can cause death equally to hands and weapons.”

Political Response

At a second meeting in the Parliament, led by a opposition politician, and including the government official, the grieving families again told their stories.

A parliamentary under-secretary 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 in fact, somebody else’s violence, and these aren’t isolated stories.”

“Our law is broken, we know that,” she stated. “Especially around murder or unlawful killing, it is piecemeal. It lacks statutory basis anyway, it has been developed with common law practices for centuries, and it is no longer fit for purpose, honestly, given the society we inhabit today.

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

Legal Authority Comment

A spokesperson for the prosecution service commented: “Family violence is a terrible crime and our prosecutors are regularly instructed to evaluate murder and manslaughter charges in suicide cases where there is a known context of family violence or other manipulative conduct.

“We have in the past prosecuted a several individuals for leading to the fatality of a partner they abused, encompassing in proceedings which are currently active.

“We are also working with police and other stakeholders to guarantee these types of crimes are well-understood – so that we can bring perpetrators accountable for the complete scope of their wrongdoings.”