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Each self-inflicted death where the deceased had endured abuse at home should be treated as a possible homicide, according to demands from advocates who seek to hold abusers accountable for the devastating impact of their actions.

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

“Time and again, there is systemic and structural failure, especially within the legal system, to scrutinise these fatalities with the seriousness they deserve,” stated a leader of a advocacy organization during a significant gathering in London earlier this week.

The assembly, organized by a group leading a “Self-Inflicted Death is Murder” initiative to advocate for reform in the criminal justice system, united relatives who had suffered bereavement to suicide following domestic abuse.

Personal Stories of Tragedy

Sharon Holland experienced the death of her child Chloe Holland in spring 2023. Before her death, Chloe had informed her former partner to authorities, providing a lengthy recorded statement as proof against him.

Following her passing, the perpetrator was convicted of manipulative and domineering conduct and jailed for over three years. He was subsequently sentenced for three years and seven months after a another victim came forward 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 to justice; yet she then discovered that laws were already in place, they just weren’t often being used to achieve convictions.

“I decided it was not a new law I required as current statutes were already there, and after finding out how much my daughter had been failed previous to her taking her life by the police and many other agencies, they needed to do their job properly, and practices needed to change,” she said.

“Over 47 families have found me and only four of us have had a guilty verdict,” she added. “I was astonished to see such a large number who have been fighting the police 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 affected inquiries that were not progressing.”

Another Tragic Case

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

“Hannah was vibrant, she was loving,” she said. “She was full of promise, and she was an exceptional, deeply devoted mother to her kids, and she took her own life after 24 months in a relationship where she was systematically destroyed by her partner,” she explained.

“She was physically beaten, she was mentally tormented, she was controlled and broken down piece by piece until she was unable to envision a path ahead. The individual who caused this walked free, because we call it suicide, we close the file and we proceed.

“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 deliberately over a two year period, and when I went to the police, when I begged them to investigate what he had inflicted upon her, I was told that there was nothing that they could do.

“There was no investigation into her death. The domestic homicide review, which I had to fight for, took five years and had no impact. A lengthy coroner’s hearing found self-inflicted death, despite huge evidence over a very traumatic multi-day session of domestic abuse and failings by various agencies.”

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

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

“We must apply the laws we already possess properly and it really isn’t happening at the present, and we need to hold abusers accountable for pushing their targets to suicide.

“The statutes exist. We need the will, we need law enforcement to conduct thorough inquiries. We need the prosecution authority to take legal action. We need the judiciary to recognize that words and control can kill just as much as hands and weapons.”

Political Response

At a follow-up gathering in the Parliament, led by a opposition politician, and attended by the government official, the grieving families again told their stories.

A junior minister informed the assembly: “Such fatalities are often written off as if they were their own choice, they opted for this, when, in truth, these were the culmination of actually, somebody else’s violence, and these are not rare incidents.”

“The legal system is flawed, we know that,” she stated. “Especially around murder or unlawful killing, it is fragmented. It lacks statutory basis anyway, it has been shaped with traditional legal customs for generations, and it is outdated, honestly, it’s the world we currently live in.

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

Legal Authority Comment

A representative for the prosecution service said: “Family violence is a terrible offense and our prosecutors are regularly instructed to consider murder and manslaughter charges in suicide cases where there is a known context of domestic abuse or other controlling or coercive behavior.

“We have in the past prosecuted a number of defendants for causing the death of a companion they mistreated, including in cases which are currently active.

“We are also working with law enforcement and other stakeholders to ensure these types of crimes are clearly recognized – so that we can hold offenders accountable for the full extent of their crimes.”