🔗 Share this article

Every suicide in which the deceased had endured domestic violence should be treated as a potential homicide, according to demands from advocates who seek to hold abusers responsible for the devastating consequences of their behavior.

This step is essential because law enforcement are failing to hold offenders to justice in cases of suicide following family violence.

“In case after case, there is systemic and structural failure, especially within the legal system, to examine these fatalities with the gravity they deserve,” remarked a co-director of a campaign group at a landmark meeting in Westminster earlier this week.

The meeting, organized by a group leading a “Self-Inflicted Death is Murder” campaign to advocate for reform in the legal framework, brought together families who had lost loved ones to self-inflicted death following domestic abuse.

Personal Stories of Loss

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

Following her passing, the individual was found guilty 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 stepped up to report that she had been in a harmful partnership with him.

After Chloe’s death, the parent chose to advocate for a legal change to bring perpetrators to justice; however she then discovered that regulations were already in place, they just were rarely applied to achieve convictions.

“I concluded it wasn’t a fresh legislation I needed as current statutes were in place, and after finding out how much my daughter had been let down before her taking her life by the authorities and numerous services, they needed to do their job properly, and practices required reform,” she explained.

“Over 47 families have found me and just a handful of us have had a guilty verdict,” she continued. “I was astonished to see such a large number who have been fighting the authorities and prosecution service for a long time and getting no justice for their offspring or brother or sister and didn’t have a voice in case it affected inquiries that weren’t possibly going anywhere.”

Another Tragic Case

One mother’s child Hannah passed away in spring 2017, in what she called “the final act of violence” in a prolonged pattern of mistreatment.

“She was vibrant, she was loving,” she stated. “She was full of promise, and she was an exceptional, deeply devoted mum to her kids, and she died by suicide after 24 months in a partnership where she was methodically broken down by her companion,” she said.

“She was physically beaten, she was mentally tormented, she was controlled and dismantled piece by piece until she could not see a path ahead. 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 remarked, “and I have not managed to move on. Honestly, she didn’t just die by suicide. She was killed. Her death was gradual and intentionally over a 24-month span, and when I approached the authorities, when I begged them to look into what he had done to her, I was told that there was nothing that they could do.

“No inquiry was conducted into her death. The domestic violence fatality analysis, which I had to struggle to obtain, took five years and changed nothing. A four day inquest found death by suicide, despite huge evidence over a extremely distressing four day period of domestic abuse and shortcomings by multiple services.”

The mother told the meeting that for a decade she has “struggled against a establishment that refuses to see what is obvious”.

She said the self-inflicted death is murder campaign was vital “since when an individual takes their own life after they’ve endured domestic abuse, we have to investigate it for what it truly represents, which is homicide.

“We must use the legislation 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 police to conduct thorough inquiries. We need the prosecution authority to prosecute. We need the judiciary to understand that words and control can kill equally to hands and weapons.”

Political Response

At a second meeting in the Parliament, chaired by a Labour MP, and attended by the safeguarding minister, the bereaved relatives again told their stories.

A junior minister informed the assembly: “These deaths are often dismissed as if they were their own choice, they opted for this, when, reality, these were the result of in fact, another person’s abuse, and these are not rare incidents.”

“Our law is broken, we are aware,” she said. “Especially around murder or manslaughter, 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, given the society we currently live in.

“I’m not going to pretend that it’s going to be simple to resolve. It is extremely complicated and difficult, especially when you look at the matter of homicide, but we recognize that it requires examination.”

Prosecution Service Statement

A representative for the prosecution service commented: “Domestic abuse is a terrible crime and our legal officers are actively advised to evaluate homicide allegations in self-inflicted death instances where there is a established background of family violence or other manipulative conduct.

“We have previously charged a several individuals for causing the death of a companion they mistreated, encompassing in cases which are ongoing.

“We are collaborating with law enforcement and other stakeholders to ensure these types of crimes are well-understood – so that we can hold offenders accountable for the full extent of their wrongdoings.”