🔗 Share this article

Each self-inflicted death in which the victim had experienced abuse at home should be considered a potential murder case, according to demands from campaigners who seek to make perpetrators responsible for the devastating consequences of their behavior.

This move is essential because law enforcement are not doing enough to bring perpetrators accountable in cases of self-inflicted death after domestic abuse.

“Time and again, there is systemic and structural failure, especially within the criminal justice system, to examine these fatalities with the gravity they deserve,” stated a leader of a campaign group at a significant meeting in London recently.

The meeting, organized by a group running a “Suicide is Homicide” campaign to advocate for change in the legal framework, brought together relatives who had lost loved ones to suicide after family violence.

Individual Accounts of Loss

One mother experienced the death of her child her 23-year-old daughter in March 2023. Prior to her passing, Chloe had informed her ex-boyfriend to authorities, providing a lengthy recorded statement as evidence about his conduct.

After her death, the individual was found guilty of coercive and controlling behavior and imprisoned for 41 months. He was later jailed for an additional term after a another victim stepped up to disclose that she had been in a harmful partnership with him.

In the wake of her loss, the mother chose to advocate for a new law to hold offenders accountable; yet she then realized that laws were already in place, they just were rarely applied to achieve convictions.

“I decided it wasn’t a fresh legislation I needed as current statutes were already there, and after learning how much my child had been failed before her taking her life by the authorities and many other agencies, they had to fulfill their duties, and practices required reform,” she said.

“More than four dozen relatives have found me and only four of us have had a conviction,” she continued. “I was astonished to see such a large number who have been fighting the police and prosecution service for a long time and getting no justice for their offspring or sibling and didn’t have a voice in case it impacted 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 described as “the ultimate abusive action” in a prolonged pattern of mistreatment.

“She was energetic, she was caring,” she said. “She had great potential, and she was an amazing, deeply devoted mum to her two children, and she died by suicide after two years in a relationship where she was systematically destroyed by her partner,” she said.

“She endured physical assaults, she was psychologically tortured, she was dominated and dismantled piece by piece until she was unable to envision a way forward. The man who caused this walked free, because we label it suicide, we conclude the case and we move on.

“Yet I was unable to continue,” she remarked, “and I have not managed to move on. Honestly, Hannah did not merely take her own life. She was killed. Her death was gradual and intentionally over a 24-month span, and when I went to the police, when I begged them to investigate 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 violence fatality analysis, which I had to fight for, required five years and had no impact. A four day inquest determined death by suicide, notwithstanding substantial proof over a very traumatic multi-day session of domestic abuse and shortcomings by multiple services.”

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

She said the suicide is homicide campaign was vital “because when an individual takes their own life after they’ve suffered family violence, we have to examine it for what it truly represents, which is murder.

“We must apply the laws we already possess effectively and it really isn’t happening at the moment, and we need to hold abusers accountable for driving their victims to death.

“We have the laws. We require determination, we need law enforcement to investigate properly. We need the Crown Prosecution Service to prosecute. We need the judiciary to understand that verbal abuse and manipulation can kill equally to physical force and arms.”

Political Response

At a second meeting in the Parliament, led by a Labour MP, and attended by the safeguarding minister, the grieving families again told their stories.

A parliamentary under-secretary told the meeting: “Such fatalities are often written off as if they were their own choice, they opted for this, when, in truth, these were the result of in fact, another person’s abuse, and these are not isolated stories.”

“Our law is broken, we are aware,” she stated. “Particularly around murder or manslaughter, it is piecemeal. It’s not written in statute regardless, it has been developed with common law practices for centuries, and it is outdated, quite frankly, it’s the world we inhabit today.

“I’m not going to pretend that it’s going to be easy to resolve. It is incredibly complex and difficult, particularly when you consider 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 heinous offense 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 previously charged a number of defendants for causing the death of a companion they mistreated, including in proceedings which are ongoing.

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