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Every suicide where the victim had endured abuse at home must be treated as a possible murder case, as per demands from advocates who seek to make perpetrators responsible for the catastrophic impact of their actions.

This step is essential because law enforcement are not doing enough to bring perpetrators accountable in cases of self-inflicted death following family violence.

“Time and again, 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 during a landmark meeting in Westminster earlier this week.

The assembly, organized by a group running a “Suicide is Homicide” campaign to fight for change in the criminal justice system, united relatives who had suffered bereavement to self-inflicted death following domestic abuse.

Individual Accounts of Tragedy

One mother experienced the death of her child her 23-year-old daughter in March 2023. Prior to her passing, Chloe had informed her ex-boyfriend to police, providing a two-hour video interview as evidence against him.

After her death, the individual was found guilty of manipulative and domineering conduct and jailed for 41 months. 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.

After Chloe’s death, the parent decided to campaign for a new law to hold offenders accountable; however she then realized that laws were existing, they just were rarely applied to secure prosecutions.

“I decided it was not a fresh legislation I needed as existing laws were already there, and after learning how much my child had been failed before her death by the authorities and numerous services, they needed to do their job properly, and things needed to change,” she said.

“Over 47 families have contacted 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 authorities and CPS for a long time and receiving no resolution for their child or sibling and didn’t have a voice in case it affected inquiries that were not progressing.”

Another Tragic Case

One mother’s daughter Hannah passed away in May 2017, in what she called “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, really loving mother to her kids, and she died by suicide after two years in a relationship where she was methodically broken down by her companion,” she said.

“She endured physical assaults, she was psychologically tortured, she was dominated and broken down piece by piece until she was unable to envision a way forward. The man who did this to her walked free, because we label it self-inflicted death, we conclude the case and we proceed.

“But I could not move on,” she said, “and I haven’t been able to move on. Honestly, Hannah did not merely take her own life. She was murdered. She was killed slowly and intentionally over a 24-month span, and when I went to the police, when I begged them to look into what he had done to her, I was informed that there was nothing that they were able to take.

“There was no investigation into her passing. The domestic violence fatality analysis, which I had to fight for, required five years and had no impact. A four day inquest found self-inflicted death, notwithstanding huge evidence over a extremely distressing 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 establishment that ignores what is obvious”.

She said the self-inflicted death is murder movement was vital “because when someone takes their own life after they’ve suffered family violence, we have to examine it for what it truly represents, which is murder.

“We must apply the laws we currently have effectively and it really isn’t happening at the present, and we need to make perpetrators responsible for pushing their targets to suicide.

“We have the laws. We need the will, we need law enforcement to investigate properly. We need the Crown Prosecution Service to prosecute. We need judges to recognize that verbal abuse and manipulation can kill equally to hands and weapons.”

Political Response

At a second meeting in the House of Commons, chaired by a Labour MP, and including the safeguarding minister, the bereaved relatives again shared their experiences.

A junior minister told the meeting: “These deaths are often written off as if they were their own choice, they opted for this, when, reality, these were the culmination of in fact, somebody else’s violence, and these aren’t isolated stories.”

“The legal system is flawed, we know that,” she stated. “Especially around homicide or unlawful killing, it is piecemeal. It’s not written in statute anyway, it has been developed with common law practices for centuries, and it is outdated, quite frankly, it’s the world we currently live in.

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

Prosecution Service Statement

A representative for the prosecution service said: “Domestic abuse is a heinous crime and our legal officers are actively advised to evaluate murder and manslaughter charges in suicide cases where there is a established background of family violence or other controlling or coercive behavior.

“We have previously charged a several individuals for causing the death of a partner they abused, encompassing in proceedings which are ongoing.

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