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Each self-inflicted death in which the deceased had experienced domestic violence should be considered a possible homicide, as per demands from campaigners who aim to make perpetrators responsible for the devastating impact of their actions.

This move is necessary because law enforcement are failing to hold offenders to justice in cases of self-inflicted death after family violence.

“Time and again, there is systemic and structural failure, especially within the criminal justice system, to examine these deaths with the gravity they deserve,” stated a leader of a advocacy organization at a landmark gathering in London earlier this week.

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

Individual Accounts of Loss

Sharon Holland lost her daughter Chloe Holland in March 2023. Prior to her passing, Chloe had reported her ex-boyfriend to police, providing a lengthy recorded statement as evidence against him.

Following her passing, the individual was found guilty of coercive and controlling behavior and jailed for over three years. He was subsequently sentenced for an additional term after a another victim stepped up to report that she had been in a harmful partnership with him.

After Chloe’s death, the mother chose to advocate for a new law to bring perpetrators to justice; yet she then realized that regulations were already in place, they just were rarely applied to achieve convictions.

“I concluded it wasn’t a new law I required as existing laws were in place, and after finding out how much my child had been let down before her death by the authorities and many other agencies, they had to do their job properly, and things needed to change,” she explained.

“More than four dozen relatives have found me and only four of us have had a guilty verdict,” she continued. “I was so shocked to see such a large number who have been fighting the police and CPS for years and getting no justice for their child or brother or sister and could not speak out in case it affected investigations that were not progressing.”

Another Tragic Case

One mother’s child her 30-year-old daughter passed away in spring 2017, in what she called “the final act of violence” in a campaign of abuse.

“Hannah was energetic, she was loving,” she said. “She was full of promise, and she was an amazing, deeply devoted mother to her two children, and she died by suicide after 24 months in a partnership where she was systematically destroyed by her partner,” she said.

“She endured physical assaults, she was mentally tormented, she was controlled and broken down gradually until she was unable to envision a path ahead. The individual who caused this went unpunished, because we call it self-inflicted death, we close the file and we proceed.

“Yet I was unable to continue,” she remarked, “and I have not managed to move on. Honestly, she did not merely take her own life. She was murdered. She was killed slowly and deliberately over a 24-month span, and when I went to the police, when I pleaded with them to investigate what he had done to her, I was informed that there was no action that they could do.

“No inquiry was conducted into her passing. The domestic violence fatality analysis, which I had to struggle to obtain, required five years and had no impact. A four day inquest determined death by suicide, despite huge evidence over a extremely distressing four day period of family violence and shortcomings by various agencies.”

The mother informed the gathering that for eight years she has “struggled against a system that refuses to see what is obvious”.

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

“We need to apply the laws we already possess effectively and it really isn’t happening at the moment, and we need to hold abusers accountable for driving their victims to death.

“The statutes exist. We need the will, we need police to conduct thorough inquiries. We need the Crown Prosecution Service to prosecute. We need judges to recognize that verbal abuse and manipulation can kill just as much as physical force and arms.”

Political Response

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

A parliamentary under-secretary informed the assembly: “These deaths are often dismissed as if they were their own choice, they chose to do this, when, in truth, these were the result of in fact, another person’s abuse, and these aren’t isolated stories.”

“The legal system is flawed, we know that,” she stated. “Especially around homicide or unlawful killing, it is fragmented. It lacks statutory basis regardless, it has been shaped with common law practices for centuries, and it is no longer fit for purpose, quite frankly, it’s the world we inhabit today.

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

Prosecution Service Statement

A spokesperson for the prosecution service said: “Domestic abuse is a terrible offense and our prosecutors are regularly instructed to consider homicide allegations in self-inflicted death instances where there is a established background 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, including in cases which are currently active.

“We are also working with law enforcement and other parties to guarantee these types of crimes are clearly recognized – so that we can bring perpetrators to justice for the complete scope of their wrongdoings.”