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Every suicide in which the deceased had endured abuse at home should be considered a possible murder case, according to demands from campaigners who seek to hold abusers responsible for the catastrophic consequences of their actions.

This move is necessary because police and prosecutors are failing to bring perpetrators accountable in instances of suicide after family violence.

“In case after case, there is widespread breakdown, especially within the criminal justice system, to scrutinise these deaths with the gravity they warrant,” remarked a co-director of a advocacy organization during a significant meeting in Westminster earlier this week.

The meeting, arranged by a organization running a “Suicide is Homicide” initiative to fight for change in the criminal justice system, brought together relatives who had suffered bereavement to suicide after family violence.

Personal Stories of Loss

Sharon Holland experienced the death of her child her 23-year-old daughter in March 2023. Before her death, the young woman had informed her ex-boyfriend to authorities, providing a lengthy recorded statement as proof about his conduct.

Following her passing, the perpetrator was convicted of coercive and controlling behavior and imprisoned for 41 months. He was later jailed for an additional term after a second woman came forward to report that she had been in a violent and abusive relationship with him.

After Chloe’s death, the parent decided to campaign for a legal change to hold offenders accountable; yet she then discovered that laws were existing, they just weren’t often being used to secure prosecutions.

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

“Over 47 families have found me and only four of us have had a guilty verdict,” she continued. “I was astonished to see so many families who have been fighting the police and prosecution service for years and getting no justice for their child 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 daughter Hannah died in May 2017, in what she described as “the ultimate abusive action” in a campaign of abuse.

“Hannah 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 took her own life after 24 months in a partnership where she was methodically broken down by her companion,” she explained.

“She endured physical assaults, she was psychologically tortured, she was dominated and dismantled piece by piece until she could not see a way forward. The man who caused this went unpunished, because we call it self-inflicted death, we conclude the case and we proceed.

“But I could not move on,” she said, “and I have not managed to let go. In truth, Hannah did not merely take her own life. She was murdered. Her death was gradual and intentionally over a two year period, and when I went to the police, when I begged them to look into what he had done to her, I was told that there was nothing that they were able to take.

“There was no investigation into her death. The domestic violence fatality analysis, which I had to fight for, required five years and changed nothing. A lengthy coroner’s hearing found 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 a decade she has “been fighting a system that refuses to see what is obvious”.

She emphasized the suicide is homicide campaign was vital “because when an individual dies by suicide after they’ve suffered family violence, we have to investigate it for what it truly represents, which is murder.

“We must use the legislation we currently have properly and it is not occurring at the moment, and we need to make perpetrators responsible 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 take legal action. We need judges to recognize that verbal abuse and manipulation can kill just as much as 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 parliamentary under-secretary informed the assembly: “Such fatalities are often dismissed as if they were their own choice, they opted for this, when, reality, 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 said. “Particularly around homicide or unlawful killing, it is fragmented. It lacks statutory basis anyway, it has been developed with traditional legal customs for centuries, and it is outdated, quite frankly, given the society we inhabit today.

“I will not claim that it’s going to be simple to resolve. It is extremely complicated and difficult, particularly when you look at the matter of homicide, but we recognize that it needs to be looked at.”

Legal Authority Comment

A spokesperson for the legal body commented: “Family violence is a terrible offense and our legal officers are regularly instructed 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 in the past prosecuted a number of defendants for leading to the fatality of a companion they mistreated, encompassing in cases which are ongoing.

“We are collaborating with police and other parties to ensure these types of crimes are clearly recognized – so that we can bring perpetrators to justice for the complete scope of their wrongdoings.”