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Each self-inflicted death where the deceased had experienced domestic violence must be treated as a potential murder case, according to calls from advocates who aim to make perpetrators responsible for the devastating impact of their actions.

This step is necessary because law enforcement are failing to bring perpetrators to justice in cases of suicide 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 campaign group at a landmark gathering in London earlier this week.

The assembly, arranged by a organization running a “Self-Inflicted Death is Murder” initiative to fight for reform in the legal framework, united relatives who had suffered bereavement to suicide after family violence.

Individual Accounts of Loss

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

Following her passing, the individual was convicted of manipulative and domineering conduct and imprisoned for 41 months. He was later sentenced for an additional term after a another victim stepped up to report that she had been in a harmful partnership with him.

In the wake of her loss, the mother decided to campaign for a legal change to hold offenders accountable; however she then discovered that regulations were existing, they just weren’t often being used to secure prosecutions.

“I decided it wasn’t a fresh legislation I needed as current statutes were in place, and after finding out how much my child had been let down previous to her taking her life by the authorities and numerous services, they needed to fulfill their duties, and things required reform,” she said.

“Over 47 families have found me and only four of us have had a conviction,” she added. “I was so shocked to see such a large number who have been fighting the police and prosecution service for years and getting no justice for their offspring or brother or sister and could not speak out in case it affected investigations that weren’t possibly going anywhere.”

Another Tragic Case

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

“She was vibrant, she was loving,” she stated. “She had great potential, and she was an exceptional, deeply devoted mother to her kids, and she took her own life after two years in a partnership where she was methodically broken down by her companion,” she explained.

“She endured physical assaults, she was mentally tormented, she was controlled and broken down piece by piece until she could not see a way forward. The individual who caused this went unpunished, because we label it self-inflicted death, we close the file and we move on.

“But I could not move on,” she said, “and I have not managed to move on. In truth, Hannah didn’t just die by suicide. She was murdered. She was killed slowly and intentionally over a two year period, 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 no action that they were able to take.

“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 lengthy coroner’s hearing found death by suicide, despite huge evidence over a extremely distressing multi-day session of domestic abuse and shortcomings by multiple services.”

The mother informed the gathering that for a decade she has “struggled against a system that refuses to see what is right in front of it”.

She emphasized the self-inflicted death is murder campaign was vital “because when someone dies by suicide after they’ve endured domestic abuse, we have to investigate it for what it truly represents, which is homicide.

“We must apply the laws we currently have properly and it is not occurring at the present, and we need to hold abusers accountable for pushing their targets to suicide.

“The statutes exist. We require determination, we need law enforcement to conduct thorough inquiries. We need the prosecution authority to take legal action. We need the judiciary to recognize that verbal abuse and manipulation can kill equally to hands and weapons.”

Political Response

At a second meeting in the Parliament, led by a Labour MP, and attended by the government official, 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 decision, they chose to do this, when, in truth, these were the result of actually, another person’s abuse, and these are not rare incidents.”

“The legal system is flawed, we know that,” she said. “Especially around murder or unlawful killing, it is piecemeal. It’s not written in statute anyway, it has been developed with traditional legal customs for centuries, and it is outdated, honestly, it’s the world we inhabit today.

“I’m not going to pretend that it’s going to be easy to fix. It is incredibly complex and difficult, particularly when you consider the matter of homicide, but we recognize that it requires examination.”

Legal Authority Comment

A spokesperson for the prosecution service commented: “Family violence is a heinous offense and our prosecutors are actively advised to evaluate murder and manslaughter charges in self-inflicted death instances where there is a known context of domestic abuse or other controlling or coercive behavior.

“We have previously charged a number of defendants for leading to the fatality of a companion they abused, encompassing in cases which are ongoing.

“We are collaborating 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.”