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Every suicide in which the deceased had experienced domestic violence should be treated as a possible murder case, as per demands from advocates who aim to hold abusers responsible for the catastrophic consequences of their actions.

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

“In case after case, there is widespread breakdown, particularly within the criminal justice system, to examine these fatalities with the seriousness they warrant,” stated a leader of a advocacy organization at a landmark meeting in Westminster recently.

The meeting, organized by a group leading a “Suicide is Homicide” initiative to advocate for change in the legal framework, united families who had suffered bereavement to suicide following family violence.

Individual Accounts of Tragedy

One mother lost her daughter Chloe Holland in spring 2023. Prior to her passing, Chloe had reported her former partner to authorities, providing a two-hour video interview as proof about his conduct.

Following her passing, the individual was found guilty of coercive and controlling behavior and jailed for over three years. He was subsequently sentenced for an additional term after a second woman stepped up to disclose that she had been in a violent and abusive relationship with him.

After Chloe’s death, the parent decided to campaign for a legal change to hold offenders to justice; however she then realized that laws were existing, they just weren’t often being used to secure prosecutions.

“I concluded it was not a new law I needed as existing laws were in place, and after learning how much my child had been failed previous to her taking her life by the police and many other agencies, they needed to fulfill their duties, and things needed to change,” she said.

“More than four dozen relatives have found me and just a handful of us have had a guilty verdict,” she continued. “I was so shocked to see so many families who have been battling the authorities and prosecution service for a long time and getting no justice for their offspring or sibling and didn’t have a voice in case it affected inquiries that weren’t possibly going anywhere.”

Further Heartbreaking Account

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

“Hannah was vibrant, she was loving,” she said. “She was full of promise, and she was an exceptional, deeply devoted mother to her kids, and she took her own life after 24 months in a relationship where she was methodically broken down by her companion,” she said.

“She was physically beaten, she was mentally tormented, she was controlled and broken down gradually until she was unable to envision a path ahead. The individual who caused this went unpunished, because we call it suicide, we close the file and we proceed.

“Yet I was unable to continue,” she remarked, “and I haven’t been able to move on. In truth, she didn’t just die by suicide. She was murdered. Her death was gradual and deliberately over a 24-month span, and when I went to the police, when I pleaded with them to investigate what he had done to her, I was told that there was no action that they could do.

“There was no investigation into her passing. The domestic violence fatality analysis, which I had to fight for, took five years and changed nothing. A four day inquest determined death by suicide, notwithstanding substantial proof over a extremely distressing multi-day session of domestic abuse 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 suicide is homicide campaign was vital “since when an individual dies by suicide after they’ve endured domestic abuse, we have to investigate it for what it really is, which is homicide.

“We need to apply the laws we already possess properly and it is not occurring at the moment, and we need to make perpetrators responsible for driving their victims to death.

“We have the laws. We need the will, we need police to investigate properly. We need the prosecution authority to take legal action. We need the judiciary to recognize that verbal abuse and manipulation can kill equally to physical force and arms.”

Government Reaction

At a follow-up gathering in the Parliament, chaired by a Labour MP, and attended by 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, reality, these were the culmination of actually, somebody else’s violence, and these are not isolated stories.”

“Our law is broken, we are aware,” she said. “Particularly around murder or manslaughter, it is piecemeal. It lacks statutory basis anyway, it has been developed with traditional legal customs for centuries, and it is no longer fit for purpose, quite frankly, it’s the world we inhabit today.

“I will not claim that it’s going to be easy to fix. It is incredibly complex and difficult, particularly when you look at the issue of murder, but we acknowledge that it requires examination.”

Prosecution Service Statement

A representative for the prosecution service said: “Family violence is a terrible offense and our prosecutors are actively advised to evaluate murder and manslaughter charges in suicide cases where there is a known context of family violence or other controlling or coercive behavior.

“We have previously charged a number of defendants for leading to the fatality of a companion they mistreated, including in proceedings which are currently active.

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