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Each self-inflicted death where the deceased had endured abuse at home must be treated as a possible homicide, as per calls from campaigners who seek to make perpetrators responsible for the devastating impact of their behavior.

This move is essential because law enforcement are not doing enough to hold offenders 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 examine these fatalities with the gravity they warrant,” stated a leader of a campaign group during a significant gathering in London recently.

The assembly, organized by a organization running a “Suicide is Homicide” initiative to advocate for reform in the criminal justice system, brought together families who had lost loved ones to suicide following domestic abuse.

Personal Stories of Tragedy

One mother experienced the death of her child Chloe Holland in March 2023. Prior to her passing, Chloe had reported her former partner to police, submitting a two-hour video interview as proof about his conduct.

Following her passing, the individual was found guilty of manipulative and domineering conduct and jailed for over three years. He was later sentenced for three years and seven months after a second woman 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 hold offenders to justice; yet she then discovered that laws were already in place, they just were rarely applied to secure prosecutions.

“I concluded it was not a new law I needed as existing laws were already there, and after finding out how much my daughter had been let down before her death by the authorities and many other agencies, they had to do their job properly, and practices required reform,” she explained.

“Over 47 families have contacted me and only four of us have had a conviction,” she continued. “I was astonished to see so many families who have been battling the authorities and CPS for a long time and receiving no resolution for their child or sibling and could not speak out in case it affected inquiries that were not progressing.”

Further Heartbreaking Account

One mother’s child her 30-year-old daughter passed away in spring 2017, in what she called “the ultimate abusive action” in a campaign of abuse.

“She was vibrant, she was caring,” she said. “She was full of promise, and she was an amazing, really loving mother to her kids, and she died by suicide after 24 months 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 broken down gradually until she could not see a path ahead. The man who did this to her walked free, because we call it suicide, we close the file and we move on.

“But I could not move on,” she remarked, “and I haven’t been able to let go. In truth, she 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 told that there was no action that they could do.

“There was no investigation 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 determined death by suicide, notwithstanding huge evidence over a very traumatic four day period of family violence and failings by various agencies.”

The parent informed the gathering that for eight years she has “been fighting a system that refuses to see what is right in front of it”.

She emphasized the self-inflicted death is murder campaign was critical “since 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 must use the legislation we currently have properly and it is not occurring at the present, and we need to make perpetrators responsible for driving their victims to death.

“We have the laws. We need the will, we need police to conduct thorough inquiries. We need the Crown Prosecution Service to take legal action. We need the judiciary to understand that words and control can kill equally to physical force and arms.”

Political Response

At a second meeting in the Parliament, chaired by a opposition politician, and including the safeguarding minister, the bereaved relatives again told their stories.

A parliamentary under-secretary told the meeting: “Such fatalities are often dismissed as if they were their decision, they chose to do this, when, reality, these were the result of actually, somebody else’s violence, and these are not isolated stories.”

“The legal system is flawed, we know that,” she stated. “Particularly around murder or manslaughter, it is fragmented. It’s not written in statute regardless, it has been developed with traditional legal customs for centuries, and it is outdated, honestly, given the society we currently live in.

“I’m not going to pretend that it’s going to be easy to resolve. It is incredibly complex and difficult, particularly 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 said: “Domestic abuse is a terrible crime and our legal officers are actively advised to consider murder and manslaughter charges in self-inflicted death instances where there is a known context of domestic abuse or other manipulative conduct.

“We have previously charged a number of defendants 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 parties to ensure these kinds of offences are clearly recognized – so that we can bring perpetrators to justice for the full extent of their wrongdoings.”