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Every suicide in which the deceased had experienced domestic violence must be treated as a potential homicide, according to calls from campaigners who aim to make perpetrators accountable for the devastating consequences of their behavior.

This move is necessary because law enforcement are not doing enough to hold offenders to justice in instances of self-inflicted death following family violence.

“Time and again, there is widespread breakdown, particularly within the legal system, to examine these deaths with the gravity they deserve,” stated a leader of a campaign group during a significant gathering in London recently.

The assembly, arranged by a group leading a “Self-Inflicted Death is Murder” initiative to advocate for change in the criminal justice system, united relatives who had lost loved ones to self-inflicted death following family violence.

Personal Stories of Loss

Sharon Holland experienced the death of her child her 23-year-old daughter in spring 2023. Before her death, the young woman had informed her former partner to police, submitting a lengthy recorded statement as proof about his conduct.

After her death, the individual was convicted of manipulative and domineering conduct and imprisoned for 41 months. He was subsequently sentenced for three years and seven months after a second woman stepped up to disclose that she had been in a harmful partnership with him.

In the wake of her loss, the mother chose to advocate for a legal change to hold offenders accountable; yet she then realized that regulations were existing, they just were rarely applied to achieve convictions.

“I decided it wasn’t a fresh legislation I needed as existing laws were already there, and after learning how much my daughter had been failed before her death by the police and numerous services, they needed to fulfill their duties, and practices required reform,” she said.

“More than four dozen relatives have contacted me and just a handful of us have had a conviction,” she added. “I was astonished to see so many families who have been fighting the police and CPS for a long time and getting no justice for their child or sibling and didn’t have a voice in case it affected inquiries that weren’t possibly going anywhere.”

Another Tragic Case

One mother’s child her 30-year-old daughter passed away in spring 2017, in what she described as “the ultimate abusive action” in a prolonged pattern of mistreatment.

“Hannah was vibrant, she was loving,” she said. “She had great potential, and she was an exceptional, really loving mum to her two children, and she died by suicide after two years in a partnership where she was systematically destroyed by her partner,” she explained.

“She was physically beaten, she was mentally tormented, she was dominated and broken down piece by piece until she could not see a way forward. The man who caused this walked free, because we call it suicide, we close the file and we move on.

“Yet I was unable to continue,” she said, “and I have not managed to move on. In truth, Hannah did not merely take her own life. She was murdered. She was killed slowly and deliberately over a two year period, and when I approached the authorities, when I pleaded with them to investigate what he had done to her, I was told that there was nothing that they could do.

“No inquiry was conducted into her passing. The domestic homicide review, which I had to fight for, took five years and changed nothing. A lengthy coroner’s hearing found death by suicide, despite huge evidence over a extremely distressing four day period of family violence and shortcomings by various agencies.”

The parent informed the gathering that for a decade she has “been fighting a system that ignores what is right in front of it”.

She said the self-inflicted death is murder campaign was vital “since when an individual takes their own life after they’ve endured domestic abuse, we have to examine it for what it truly represents, which is murder.

“We need to use the legislation we currently have properly and it really isn’t happening at the present, and we need to hold abusers accountable for pushing their targets to suicide.

“We have the laws. We require determination, we need police to investigate properly. We need the prosecution authority to prosecute. We need the judiciary to understand that words and control can kill just as much as hands and weapons.”

Political Response

At a second meeting in the House of Commons, chaired by a Labour MP, and attended by the safeguarding minister, the grieving families again shared their experiences.

A junior minister told the meeting: “These deaths are often written off as if they were their decision, they chose to do this, when, in truth, these were the result of in fact, another person’s abuse, and these are not isolated stories.”

“Our law is broken, we know that,” she said. “Especially around murder or manslaughter, it is fragmented. It’s not written in statute anyway, it has been developed with common law practices for generations, 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 simple to fix. It is extremely complicated and challenging, especially when you look at the issue of homicide, but we acknowledge that it needs to be looked at.”

Prosecution Service Statement

A spokesperson for the legal body commented: “Domestic abuse is a heinous crime and our legal officers are regularly instructed to evaluate homicide allegations 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 several individuals for causing the death of a partner they abused, including in proceedings which are currently active.

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