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Every suicide where the deceased had endured abuse at home should be treated as a potential homicide, as per calls from campaigners who seek to hold abusers accountable for the catastrophic consequences of their actions.

This move is essential because law enforcement are failing to bring perpetrators to justice in instances of self-inflicted death following domestic abuse.

“Time and again, there is widespread breakdown, especially within the criminal justice system, to scrutinise these deaths with the seriousness they deserve,” remarked a leader of a campaign group during a landmark gathering in London earlier this week.

The assembly, arranged by a group running a “Suicide is Homicide” initiative to fight for reform in the legal framework, united families who had lost loved ones to suicide after domestic abuse.

Personal Stories of Tragedy

One mother experienced the death of her child her 23-year-old daughter in March 2023. Prior to her passing, Chloe had reported her ex-boyfriend to authorities, providing a lengthy recorded statement as evidence about his conduct.

After her death, the individual was convicted of coercive and controlling behavior and imprisoned for over three years. He was later sentenced for three years and seven months after a second woman came forward 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; however she then discovered that laws were already in place, they just were rarely applied to achieve convictions.

“I concluded it wasn’t a fresh legislation I needed as existing laws were in place, and after learning how much my daughter had been let down previous to her taking her life by the authorities and many other agencies, they had to do their job properly, and practices needed to change,” 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 prosecution service for a long time and receiving no resolution for their child or sibling and could not speak out in case it affected investigations that weren’t possibly going anywhere.”

Further Heartbreaking Account

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.

“She was vibrant, she was loving,” she said. “She had great potential, and she was an amazing, deeply devoted mother to her kids, and she took her own life after two years in a partnership where she was methodically broken down by her partner,” she said.

“She endured physical assaults, she was mentally tormented, she was dominated and broken down gradually until she could not see a way forward. The individual who did this to her went unpunished, because we label it suicide, we conclude the case and we move on.

“Yet I was unable to continue,” she said, “and I have not managed to move on. Honestly, she did not merely take her own life. She was murdered. Her death was gradual and deliberately over a 24-month span, and when I approached the authorities, when I begged them to investigate what he had inflicted upon her, I was informed that there was nothing that they could do.

“There was no investigation into her passing. The domestic homicide review, which I had to struggle to obtain, required five years and changed nothing. A lengthy coroner’s hearing determined self-inflicted death, despite substantial proof over a extremely distressing four day period of family violence and shortcomings by various agencies.”

The parent informed the gathering that for eight years she has “been fighting a system that ignores what is obvious”.

She emphasized the self-inflicted death is murder movement was critical “because when someone dies by suicide after they’ve suffered family violence, we have to examine it for what it truly represents, which is murder.

“We need to use the legislation we already possess 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 require determination, we need law enforcement to conduct thorough inquiries. We need the Crown Prosecution Service to take legal action. We need judges to recognize that verbal abuse and manipulation can cause death equally to physical force and arms.”

Political Response

At a second meeting in the Parliament, led by a Labour MP, and attended by the government official, the grieving families again told their stories.

A parliamentary under-secretary informed the assembly: “These deaths 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, another person’s abuse, and these are not isolated stories.”

“The legal system is flawed, we know that,” she said. “Especially around murder or unlawful killing, it is fragmented. It’s not written in statute regardless, it has been shaped with traditional legal customs for centuries, and it is no longer fit for purpose, honestly, it’s the world we inhabit today.

“I will not claim that it’s going to be easy to fix. It is extremely complicated and challenging, particularly when you consider the issue of homicide, but we acknowledge that it needs to be looked at.”

Prosecution Service Statement

A representative for the prosecution service said: “Family violence is a heinous crime and our prosecutors are regularly instructed to consider murder and manslaughter charges in self-inflicted death instances where there is a established background of domestic abuse or other manipulative conduct.

“We have previously charged a several individuals for causing the death of a companion they abused, including in proceedings which are currently active.

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