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Every suicide where the deceased had endured abuse at home must be considered a possible homicide, according to demands from campaigners who seek to make perpetrators accountable for the catastrophic impact of their behavior.

This move is necessary because police and prosecutors are not doing enough to hold offenders to justice in cases of suicide following family violence.

“In case after case, there is systemic and structural failure, especially within the legal system, to examine these deaths with the seriousness they warrant,” remarked a co-director of a advocacy organization at a landmark meeting in Westminster earlier this week.

The meeting, organized by a organization running a “Suicide is Homicide” campaign to fight for change in the criminal justice system, united families who had suffered bereavement to suicide after domestic abuse.

Individual Accounts of Tragedy

Sharon Holland lost her daughter her 23-year-old daughter in spring 2023. Prior to her passing, Chloe had informed her former partner to police, submitting a two-hour video interview as proof about his conduct.

Following her passing, the individual was convicted of manipulative and domineering conduct and jailed for over three years. He was later sentenced for an additional term after a second woman stepped up to disclose that she had been in a harmful partnership with him.

After Chloe’s death, the parent chose to advocate for a new law to hold offenders to justice; however she then realized that laws were already in place, they just weren’t often being used to achieve convictions.

“I concluded it was not a new law I required as current statutes were in place, and after learning how much my daughter had been let down previous to her death by the police and numerous services, they needed to do their job properly, and practices needed to change,” she said.

“Over 47 families have found me and just a handful of us have had a conviction,” she added. “I was astonished to see such a large number who have been battling the authorities and prosecution service for years and receiving no resolution for their offspring or sibling and didn’t have a voice in case it impacted inquiries that were not progressing.”

Another Tragic Case

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

“She was energetic, she was loving,” she stated. “She was full of promise, and she was an exceptional, really loving mum to her kids, and she died by suicide after two years in a relationship where she was methodically broken down by her partner,” she said.

“She endured physical assaults, she was mentally tormented, she was controlled and broken down gradually until she could not see a path ahead. The individual who did this to her walked free, because we call it suicide, we conclude the case and we proceed.

“But I could not move on,” she said, “and I haven’t been able 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 went to the police, when I pleaded with 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 lengthy coroner’s hearing found self-inflicted death, notwithstanding substantial proof over a very traumatic four day period of family violence and shortcomings by various agencies.”

The mother told the meeting that for a decade she has “been fighting a system that ignores what is right in front of it”.

She emphasized the suicide is homicide movement was critical “since when an individual dies by suicide after they’ve endured family violence, we have to investigate it for what it really is, which is homicide.

“We must use the legislation we currently have properly and it is not occurring at the moment, and we need to hold abusers accountable for driving their victims to death.

“We have the laws. We need the will, we need law enforcement to investigate properly. We need the prosecution authority to prosecute. We need the judiciary to understand that words and control can cause death equally to hands and weapons.”

Political Response

At a second meeting in the House of Commons, chaired by a opposition politician, and including the government official, the bereaved relatives again shared their experiences.

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

“The legal system is flawed, we know that,” she stated. “Especially around murder or unlawful killing, it is piecemeal. It’s not written in statute anyway, it has been shaped 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 will not claim that it’s going to be easy to fix. It is incredibly complex and challenging, particularly when you consider the issue of homicide, but we acknowledge that it needs to be looked at.”

Legal Authority Comment

A representative for the prosecution service said: “Family violence is a terrible crime and our legal officers are actively advised to evaluate homicide allegations in suicide cases where there is a established background of domestic abuse or other controlling or coercive behavior.

“We have previously charged a several individuals for causing the death of a partner they abused, including in cases which are ongoing.

“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 full extent of their wrongdoings.”