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Each self-inflicted death where the victim had endured abuse at home should be treated as a potential homicide, according to calls from advocates who seek to hold abusers accountable for the catastrophic consequences of their behavior.

This step is necessary because police and prosecutors are not doing enough to bring perpetrators to justice in instances of suicide after domestic abuse.

“Time and again, there is widespread breakdown, particularly within the legal system, to scrutinise these fatalities with the seriousness they deserve,” stated a co-director of a advocacy organization during a significant meeting in Westminster earlier this week.

The assembly, arranged by a group leading a “Self-Inflicted Death is Murder” campaign to fight for change in the legal framework, united families who had suffered bereavement to suicide after domestic abuse.

Individual Accounts of Loss

Sharon Holland lost her daughter her 23-year-old daughter in March 2023. Prior to her passing, the young woman had informed her ex-boyfriend to authorities, providing a two-hour video interview as proof about his conduct.

Following her passing, the perpetrator was found guilty of manipulative and domineering conduct and imprisoned for over three years. He was subsequently jailed for three years and seven months 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 bring perpetrators accountable; yet she then realized that laws were existing, they just weren’t often being used to achieve convictions.

“I decided it was not a fresh legislation I required as current statutes were in place, and after learning how much my child had been failed previous to her death by the authorities and many other agencies, they needed to do their job properly, and practices required reform,” she said.

“Over 47 families have contacted me and only four of us have had a guilty verdict,” she continued. “I was so shocked to see so many families who have been fighting the police and CPS for a long time and receiving no resolution for their child or sibling and didn’t have a voice in case it impacted investigations that weren’t possibly going anywhere.”

Another Tragic Case

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

“Hannah was vibrant, she was loving,” she stated. “She had great potential, and she was an amazing, really loving mother to her kids, and she died by suicide after two years in a partnership where she was methodically broken down by her partner,” she explained.

“She endured physical assaults, she was mentally tormented, she was dominated and dismantled piece by piece until she was unable to envision a path ahead. The man who caused this walked free, because we label it suicide, we close the file and we move on.

“Yet I was unable to continue,” she said, “and I haven’t been able to move on. Honestly, Hannah did not merely take her own life. She was killed. She was killed slowly and deliberately over a two year period, and when I went to the police, when I pleaded with them to investigate what he had inflicted upon her, I was told that there was no action that they were able to take.

“There was no investigation into her passing. The domestic homicide review, which I had to fight for, required five years and had no impact. A lengthy coroner’s hearing found death by suicide, despite huge evidence over a very traumatic four day period of domestic abuse and shortcomings by various agencies.”

The parent told the meeting that for a decade she has “been fighting a establishment that ignores what is obvious”.

She emphasized the suicide is homicide campaign was critical “since when an individual takes their own life after they’ve endured family violence, we have to investigate it for what it really is, which is murder.

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

“The statutes exist. We require determination, we need police to conduct thorough inquiries. We need the Crown Prosecution Service to prosecute. We need the judiciary to understand that words and control can kill equally to physical force and arms.”

Political Response

At a follow-up gathering in the House of Commons, led by a opposition politician, and attended by the safeguarding minister, the bereaved relatives again told their stories.

A junior minister informed the assembly: “These deaths are often written off as if they were their own choice, they chose to do this, when, reality, these were the result of in fact, somebody else’s violence, and these aren’t isolated stories.”

“Our law is broken, we know that,” she said. “Especially around homicide or unlawful killing, it is fragmented. It lacks statutory basis anyway, it has been developed with common law practices for centuries, and it is no longer fit for purpose, quite frankly, given the society we inhabit today.

“I will not claim that it’s going to be easy to fix. It is incredibly complex and challenging, particularly when you look at the matter of homicide, but we acknowledge that it needs to be looked at.”

Legal Authority Comment

A representative for the prosecution service said: “Family violence is a terrible crime and our legal officers are regularly instructed to consider homicide allegations 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 abused, including in cases which are ongoing.

“We are also working with police and other parties to guarantee these kinds of offences are clearly recognized – so that we can hold offenders accountable for the complete scope of their wrongdoings.”