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Every suicide where the deceased had experienced abuse at home should be considered a potential murder case, as per demands from campaigners who aim to make perpetrators accountable for the devastating consequences of their behavior.

This step is essential because police and prosecutors are failing to bring perpetrators accountable in cases of suicide after domestic abuse.

“In case after case, there is widespread breakdown, especially within the legal system, to examine these deaths with the seriousness they warrant,” remarked a leader of a campaign group at a landmark gathering in London earlier this week.

The assembly, arranged by a group leading a “Self-Inflicted Death is Murder” campaign to advocate for change in the criminal justice system, united families who had lost loved ones to suicide after domestic abuse.

Individual Accounts of Loss

One mother experienced the death of her child her 23-year-old daughter in spring 2023. Prior to her passing, Chloe had reported her former partner to police, providing a two-hour video interview as evidence against him.

After her death, the perpetrator was found guilty of manipulative and domineering conduct and imprisoned for 41 months. He was later sentenced for three years and seven months after a second woman came forward to report that she had been in a violent and abusive relationship with him.

After Chloe’s death, the parent chose to advocate for a new law to bring perpetrators accountable; however she then discovered 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 death by the authorities and numerous services, they had to do their job properly, and practices needed to change,” she said.

“Over 47 families have contacted me and just a handful of us have had a conviction,” she continued. “I was so shocked to see so many families who have been fighting the authorities and prosecution service for a long time and getting no justice for their child or sibling and didn’t have a voice in case it impacted investigations that weren’t possibly going anywhere.”

Further Heartbreaking Account

One mother’s daughter her 30-year-old daughter died in May 2017, in what she described as “the ultimate abusive action” in a campaign of abuse.

“Hannah was energetic, she was loving,” she stated. “She was full of promise, and she was an amazing, really loving mum to her two children, and she died by suicide after 24 months in a partnership where she was methodically broken down by her partner,” she explained.

“She was physically beaten, she was mentally tormented, she was dominated and dismantled gradually until she could not see a way forward. The man who caused this went unpunished, because we call it self-inflicted death, we conclude the case and we proceed.

“Yet I was unable to continue,” she said, “and I have not managed to let go. Honestly, Hannah didn’t just die by suicide. She was killed. She was killed slowly and deliberately over a two year period, and when I went to the police, when I begged them to investigate what he had done to her, I was informed that there was nothing that they were able to take.

“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 determined death by suicide, despite huge evidence over a extremely distressing multi-day session of family violence and shortcomings by multiple services.”

The parent told the meeting that for a decade she has “struggled against a system that ignores what is right in front of it”.

She emphasized the self-inflicted death is murder movement was vital “since when someone takes their own life after they’ve endured domestic abuse, we have to examine it for what it truly represents, which is murder.

“We need to apply the laws we already possess effectively and it really isn’t happening at the present, and we need to make perpetrators responsible 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 take legal action. We need the judiciary to understand that verbal abuse and manipulation can cause death equally to hands and weapons.”

Government Reaction

At a second meeting in the Parliament, led by a opposition politician, and including the government official, the grieving families again told their stories.

A parliamentary under-secretary told the meeting: “These deaths are often dismissed as if they were their own choice, they opted for this, when, in truth, these were the result of actually, somebody else’s violence, and these are not isolated stories.”

“The legal system is flawed, we are aware,” she stated. “Particularly around homicide or manslaughter, it is fragmented. It’s not written in statute anyway, it has been developed with traditional legal customs for centuries, and it is no longer fit for purpose, quite frankly, given the society we currently live in.

“I’m not going to pretend that it’s going to be easy to fix. It is extremely complicated and challenging, particularly when you look at the matter of homicide, but we recognize that it requires examination.”

Legal Authority Comment

A representative for the prosecution service commented: “Domestic abuse is a terrible offense and our legal officers are regularly instructed to consider murder and manslaughter charges in suicide cases where there is a established background of family violence or other manipulative conduct.

“We have previously charged a number of defendants for causing the death of a partner they abused, encompassing in proceedings which are ongoing.

“We are collaborating with law enforcement and other stakeholders to ensure these kinds of offences are well-understood – so that we can hold offenders to justice for the full extent of their crimes.”