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Every suicide where the victim had endured domestic violence must be treated as a possible homicide, according to calls from advocates who aim to make perpetrators responsible for the devastating consequences of their behavior.

This step is essential because police and prosecutors are failing to bring perpetrators accountable in instances of self-inflicted death following family violence.

“In case after case, there is systemic and structural failure, especially within the legal system, to examine these deaths with the gravity they warrant,” stated a leader of a advocacy organization during a significant gathering in Westminster earlier this week.

The meeting, arranged by a group running a “Self-Inflicted Death is Murder” campaign to fight for reform in the criminal justice system, united relatives who had lost loved ones to suicide after family violence.

Personal Stories of Tragedy

Sharon Holland experienced the death of her child Chloe Holland in spring 2023. Prior to her passing, the young woman had informed her former partner to authorities, submitting a lengthy recorded statement as proof against him.

After her death, the individual was convicted of coercive and controlling behavior and jailed for 41 months. He was later sentenced for an additional term after a another victim stepped up to disclose that she had been in a violent and abusive relationship with him.

After Chloe’s death, the mother chose to advocate for a legal change to bring perpetrators to justice; yet she then realized that laws were existing, they just were rarely applied to secure prosecutions.

“I concluded it was not a fresh legislation I needed as existing laws were already there, and after finding out how much my child had been let down previous to her death by the authorities and many other agencies, they had to do their job properly, and practices required reform,” she explained.

“Over 47 families have found me and only four of us have had a conviction,” she added. “I was so shocked to see so many families who have been battling the police and prosecution service for years and getting no justice for their offspring or brother or sister and could not speak out in case it impacted inquiries that were not progressing.”

Further Heartbreaking Account

One mother’s daughter Hannah died in May 2017, in what she described as “the final act of violence” in a prolonged pattern of mistreatment.

“She was energetic, she was loving,” she said. “She had great potential, and she was an exceptional, deeply devoted mother to her two children, and she took her own life after 24 months in a relationship where she was methodically broken down by her partner,” she said.

“She was physically beaten, she was psychologically tortured, she was controlled and broken down piece by piece until she was unable to envision a way forward. The man who caused this went unpunished, because we label it self-inflicted death, we close the file and we move on.

“But I could not move on,” she said, “and I have not managed to move on. In truth, she didn’t just die by suicide. She was murdered. She was killed slowly and intentionally over a 24-month span, 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 were able to take.

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

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

She emphasized the suicide is homicide movement was vital “because when someone dies by suicide after they’ve suffered domestic abuse, we have to investigate it for what it truly represents, which is murder.

“We must apply the laws we currently have properly and it is not occurring at the moment, and we need to hold abusers accountable for pushing their targets to suicide.

“We have the laws. We need the will, we need law enforcement to conduct thorough inquiries. 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.”

Government Reaction

At a follow-up gathering in the Parliament, chaired by a Labour MP, and including the government official, the grieving families again shared their experiences.

A parliamentary under-secretary told the meeting: “Such fatalities 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.”

“The legal system is flawed, we know that,” she stated. “Particularly around murder or unlawful killing, it is fragmented. It’s not written in statute anyway, it has been shaped with traditional legal customs for centuries, and it is outdated, honestly, it’s the world we currently live in.

“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 matter of homicide, but we recognize that it requires examination.”

Legal Authority Comment

A spokesperson for the legal body said: “Family violence is a terrible crime and our prosecutors are regularly instructed to evaluate murder and manslaughter charges in self-inflicted death instances where there is a known context of family violence or other manipulative conduct.

“We have previously charged a several individuals for leading to the fatality of a partner they mistreated, encompassing in proceedings which are ongoing.

“We are also working with law enforcement and other parties to ensure these kinds of offences are well-understood – so that we can bring perpetrators to justice for the complete scope of their crimes.”