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Every suicide where the victim had endured domestic violence should be treated as a potential homicide, as per calls from advocates who seek to make perpetrators accountable for the catastrophic consequences of their behavior.

This move is necessary because police and prosecutors are failing to hold offenders to justice in instances of suicide following family violence.

“In case after case, there is systemic and structural failure, particularly within the criminal justice system, to scrutinise these deaths with the seriousness they warrant,” stated a co-director of a campaign group at a landmark meeting in Westminster earlier this week.

The meeting, arranged by a organization leading a “Suicide is Homicide” initiative to advocate for reform in the legal framework, brought together families who had suffered bereavement to suicide following domestic abuse.

Individual Accounts of Tragedy

One mother lost her daughter her 23-year-old daughter in spring 2023. Prior to her passing, Chloe had reported her ex-boyfriend to police, providing a two-hour video interview as evidence about his conduct.

Following her passing, the perpetrator was found guilty of manipulative and domineering conduct and jailed for over three years. He was later sentenced for three years and seven months after a another victim came forward to disclose that she had been in a violent and abusive relationship with him.

After Chloe’s death, the mother decided to campaign for a new law to bring perpetrators to justice; however she then discovered that regulations were existing, they just weren’t often being used to achieve convictions.

“I concluded it wasn’t a new law I needed as existing laws were in place, and after finding out how much my daughter had been let down previous to her taking her life by the authorities and many other agencies, they needed to fulfill their duties, and things needed to change,” she said.

“Over 47 families have found me and only four of us have had a guilty verdict,” she added. “I was astonished to see such a large number who have been fighting the police and prosecution service for years and receiving no resolution for their child or brother or sister and didn’t have a voice in case it impacted investigations that weren’t possibly going anywhere.”

Another Tragic Case

One mother’s child Hannah died in May 2017, in what she called “the ultimate abusive action” in a campaign of abuse.

“Hannah was vibrant, she was loving,” she said. “She was full of promise, 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 psychologically tortured, she was controlled and broken down piece by piece until she was unable to envision a way forward. The individual who caused this went unpunished, because we label it suicide, we conclude the case and we proceed.

“Yet I was unable to continue,” she remarked, “and I have not managed to move on. In truth, she didn’t just die by suicide. She was killed. Her death was gradual and deliberately over a two year period, and when I approached the authorities, when I begged them to look into what he had done to her, I was informed that there was nothing that they could do.

“No inquiry was conducted into her passing. The domestic homicide review, which I had to struggle to obtain, required five years and changed nothing. A four day inquest determined self-inflicted death, despite substantial proof over a extremely distressing multi-day session of domestic abuse and shortcomings by multiple services.”

The mother informed the gathering that for a decade she has “been fighting a establishment that refuses to see what is right in front of it”.

She said the suicide is homicide campaign was vital “since when an individual dies by suicide after they’ve endured domestic abuse, we have to examine it for what it truly represents, which is homicide.

“We need to use the legislation we currently have effectively and it is not occurring at the moment, and we need to hold abusers accountable for pushing their targets to suicide.

“The statutes exist. We need the will, we need police to investigate properly. We need the Crown Prosecution Service to prosecute. We need judges to understand that words and control can cause death equally to physical force and arms.”

Political Response

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

A junior minister told the meeting: “Such fatalities are often dismissed as if they were their decision, they opted for this, when, in truth, these were the result of actually, another person’s abuse, and these aren’t rare incidents.”

“The legal system is flawed, we know that,” she stated. “Especially around murder or manslaughter, it is fragmented. It lacks statutory basis regardless, it has been developed with common law practices for centuries, and it is no longer fit for purpose, 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 murder, but we acknowledge that it needs to be looked at.”

Legal Authority Comment

A spokesperson for the legal body commented: “Family violence is a heinous crime and our prosecutors are actively advised to evaluate homicide allegations in self-inflicted death instances where there is a established background of domestic abuse or other controlling or coercive behavior.

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

“We are also working with law enforcement and other stakeholders to guarantee these types of crimes are well-understood – so that we can hold offenders accountable for the complete scope of their wrongdoings.”