🔗 Share this article

Every suicide in which the victim had experienced domestic violence must be treated as a possible homicide, as per calls from advocates who aim to hold abusers responsible for the catastrophic consequences of their behavior.

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

“Time and again, there is systemic and structural failure, particularly within the legal system, to examine these fatalities with the seriousness they deserve,” stated a co-director of a advocacy organization during a significant meeting in Westminster earlier this week.

The assembly, organized by a group running a “Self-Inflicted Death is Murder” initiative to advocate for change in the legal framework, brought together relatives who had lost loved ones to self-inflicted death following family violence.

Personal Stories of Loss

One mother experienced the death of her child Chloe Holland in March 2023. Prior to her passing, Chloe had informed her ex-boyfriend to police, providing a two-hour video interview as evidence about his conduct.

After her death, the individual was convicted of coercive and controlling behavior and jailed for 41 months. He was subsequently jailed for three years and seven months after a another victim came forward to disclose that she had been in a violent and abusive relationship with him.

In the wake of her loss, the mother decided to campaign for a legal change to hold offenders accountable; yet she then realized that regulations were existing, they just weren’t often being used to secure prosecutions.

“I decided it was not a new law I required as existing laws were already there, and after learning how much my daughter had been failed before her death by the authorities and many other agencies, they needed to do their job properly, and practices needed to change,” she explained.

“Over 47 families have found me and just a handful of us have had a conviction,” she continued. “I was astonished to see such a large number who have been battling the authorities and CPS for years and getting no justice for their offspring or sibling and could not speak out in case it impacted inquiries that weren’t possibly going anywhere.”

Further Heartbreaking Account

One mother’s daughter her 30-year-old daughter passed away in spring 2017, in what she called “the ultimate abusive action” in a campaign of abuse.

“She was energetic, she was caring,” she said. “She had great potential, and she was an exceptional, really loving mother to her two children, and she died by suicide after two years 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 dismantled piece by piece until she was unable to envision a path ahead. The individual who caused this went unpunished, because we call it self-inflicted death, we conclude the case and we proceed.

“But I could not move on,” she remarked, “and I haven’t been able to move on. Honestly, she didn’t just die by suicide. She was murdered. She was killed slowly and deliberately over a two year period, and when I approached the authorities, when I pleaded with them to look into what he had inflicted upon her, I was told that there was nothing that they could do.

“No inquiry was conducted into her passing. The domestic violence fatality analysis, which I had to struggle to obtain, required five years and changed nothing. A lengthy coroner’s hearing found death by suicide, despite huge evidence over a extremely distressing multi-day session of domestic abuse and shortcomings by multiple services.”

The mother told the meeting that for a decade she has “struggled against a system that ignores what is obvious”.

She emphasized the self-inflicted death is murder movement was critical “since when an individual takes their own life after they’ve endured family violence, we have to investigate it for what it truly represents, which is murder.

“We need to use the legislation we currently have properly and it is not occurring at the present, and we need to hold abusers accountable for pushing their targets to suicide.

“We have the laws. We require determination, we need police to investigate properly. We need the Crown Prosecution Service to prosecute. We need judges to understand that verbal abuse and manipulation can cause death just as much as physical force and arms.”

Government Reaction

At a second meeting in the Parliament, chaired by a opposition politician, and attended by the government official, the bereaved relatives again told their stories.

A parliamentary under-secretary informed the assembly: “These deaths are often dismissed as if they were their own choice, they chose to do this, when, in truth, these were the result of actually, somebody else’s violence, and these are not rare incidents.”

“The legal system is flawed, we know that,” she stated. “Particularly around homicide or unlawful killing, it is piecemeal. It’s not written in statute anyway, it has been developed with traditional legal customs for generations, and it is no longer fit for purpose, 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 difficult, particularly when you look at the matter of murder, but we acknowledge that it needs to be looked at.”

Prosecution Service Statement

A spokesperson for the prosecution service said: “Family violence is a heinous crime and our prosecutors are actively advised to consider homicide allegations in self-inflicted death instances where there is a known context of domestic abuse or other manipulative conduct.

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

“We are also working with police and other parties to guarantee these types of crimes are well-understood – so that we can hold offenders accountable for the complete scope of their wrongdoings.”