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Every suicide in which the deceased had endured abuse at home should be considered a possible homicide, according to calls from campaigners who aim to hold abusers responsible for the catastrophic consequences of their actions.

This step is essential because police and prosecutors are not doing enough to hold offenders to justice in cases of self-inflicted death following domestic abuse.

“In case after case, there is widespread breakdown, especially within the legal system, to examine these deaths with the gravity they warrant,” stated a co-director of a advocacy organization during a significant meeting in London recently.

The meeting, arranged by a group leading a “Self-Inflicted Death is Murder” initiative to advocate for reform in the legal framework, brought together families who had suffered bereavement to self-inflicted death after family violence.

Individual Accounts of Loss

Sharon Holland lost her daughter her 23-year-old daughter in spring 2023. Prior to her passing, the young woman had informed her former partner to police, submitting a two-hour video interview as proof against him.

Following her passing, the individual was convicted of coercive and controlling behavior and jailed for 41 months. He was later sentenced for three years and seven months after a another victim came forward to disclose that she had been in a harmful partnership with him.

In the wake of her loss, the mother decided to campaign for a legal change to bring perpetrators to justice; yet she then realized that laws were existing, they just were rarely applied to achieve convictions.

“I decided it wasn’t a new law I required as existing laws were in place, and after finding out how much my daughter had been failed previous to her death by the police and many other agencies, they had to fulfill their duties, and things required reform,” she explained.

“Over 47 families have found me and just a handful of us have had a guilty verdict,” she continued. “I was so shocked to see such a large number who have been fighting the authorities and CPS for a long time and receiving no resolution for their offspring or sibling and could not speak out in case it affected investigations that weren’t possibly going anywhere.”

Another Tragic Case

One mother’s child Hannah passed away in spring 2017, in what she called “the ultimate abusive action” in a prolonged pattern of mistreatment.

“Hannah was vibrant, she was caring,” she stated. “She was full of promise, and she was an amazing, deeply devoted mum to her kids, and she took her own life after two years in a relationship where she was systematically destroyed by her partner,” she explained.

“She endured physical assaults, she was mentally tormented, she was dominated and broken down gradually until she could not see a path ahead. The man who did this to her walked free, because we label it self-inflicted death, we conclude the case and we proceed.

“Yet I was unable to continue,” she said, “and I haven’t been able to let go. Honestly, she didn’t just die by suicide. She was killed. Her death was gradual and deliberately over a 24-month span, and when I approached the authorities, when I begged them to look into what he had inflicted upon her, I was informed that there was nothing that they could do.

“There was no investigation into her death. The domestic violence fatality analysis, which I had to struggle to obtain, required five years and had no impact. A four day inquest determined self-inflicted death, notwithstanding huge evidence over a extremely distressing four day period of family violence and failings by multiple services.”

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

She said the suicide is homicide campaign was vital “since when someone takes their own life after they’ve suffered family violence, we have to investigate it for what it really is, which is homicide.

“We must apply the laws we currently have properly and it is not occurring at the present, and we need to make perpetrators responsible for driving their victims to death.

“The statutes exist. We need the will, we need law enforcement to investigate properly. We need the prosecution authority to prosecute. We need the judiciary to recognize that words and control can kill just as much as hands and weapons.”

Government Reaction

At a follow-up gathering in the Parliament, chaired by a opposition politician, and including the government official, the bereaved relatives again told their stories.

A parliamentary under-secretary told the meeting: “Such fatalities are often dismissed as if they were their decision, they chose to do this, when, in truth, these were the result of actually, another person’s abuse, and these are not isolated stories.”

“Our law is broken, we know that,” she said. “Especially around homicide or manslaughter, it is fragmented. It’s not written in statute anyway, it has been shaped with common law practices for generations, and it is outdated, honestly, given the society we currently live in.

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

Legal Authority Comment

A representative for the legal body commented: “Domestic abuse 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 controlling or coercive behavior.

“We have previously charged a number of defendants for leading to the fatality of a partner they mistreated, including in cases which are ongoing.

“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.”