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Every suicide where the victim had endured abuse at home should be considered a possible murder case, as per demands from advocates who seek to hold abusers accountable for the devastating impact of their actions.

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

“In case after case, there is systemic and structural failure, particularly within the criminal justice system, to examine these fatalities with the gravity they warrant,” stated a co-director of a advocacy organization at a landmark meeting in London recently.

The assembly, organized by a organization running a “Suicide is Homicide” initiative to advocate for change in the legal framework, united relatives who had suffered bereavement to self-inflicted death after family violence.

Individual Accounts of Tragedy

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

Following her passing, the perpetrator was found guilty of coercive and controlling behavior and jailed for 41 months. He was subsequently sentenced for three years and seven months 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 chose to advocate for a new law to bring perpetrators to justice; however she then discovered that regulations were existing, they just weren’t often being used to secure prosecutions.

“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 failed previous to her taking her life by the police and many other agencies, they had to fulfill their duties, and things needed to change,” she said.

“More than four dozen relatives have found me and only four of us have had a conviction,” she added. “I was so shocked to see so many families who have been fighting the police and CPS for a long time and receiving no resolution for their offspring or sibling and could not speak out in case it impacted investigations that were not progressing.”

Another Tragic Case

One mother’s daughter her 30-year-old daughter passed away in spring 2017, in what she described as “the final act of violence” in a prolonged pattern of mistreatment.

“She was energetic, she was caring,” she stated. “She had great potential, and she was an exceptional, deeply devoted mum to her kids, and she died by suicide after 24 months in a relationship where she was methodically broken down by her partner,” she said.

“She endured physical assaults, she was psychologically tortured, she was dominated and dismantled gradually until she could not see a path ahead. The man who caused this went unpunished, because we label it suicide, we conclude the case and we move on.

“Yet I was unable to continue,” she said, “and I haven’t been able to let go. In truth, she did not merely take her own life. She was killed. Her death was gradual and deliberately over a two year period, and when I approached the authorities, when I begged them to look into what he had done to her, I was told that there was no action that they could do.

“No inquiry was conducted 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 death by suicide, notwithstanding substantial proof over a extremely distressing four day period of family violence and failings by multiple services.”

The mother informed the gathering that for a decade she has “struggled against a system that refuses to see what is right in front of it”.

She emphasized the suicide is homicide movement was vital “since when someone takes their own life after they’ve endured domestic abuse, we have to investigate it for what it really is, which is murder.

“We need to apply the laws we currently have properly and it is not occurring at the present, and we need to make perpetrators responsible for pushing their targets to suicide.

“We have the laws. We need the will, we need law enforcement to investigate properly. We need the Crown Prosecution Service to prosecute. We need the judiciary to understand that verbal abuse and manipulation can kill equally to hands and weapons.”

Political Response

At a second meeting in the Parliament, chaired by a opposition politician, and including the safeguarding minister, the bereaved relatives again told their stories.

A parliamentary under-secretary informed the assembly: “Such fatalities are often written off as if they were their own choice, they opted for this, when, in truth, these were the result of in fact, somebody else’s violence, and these are not rare incidents.”

“The legal system is flawed, we know that,” she said. “Especially around murder or unlawful killing, it is piecemeal. It’s not written in statute regardless, it has been developed 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 difficult, particularly when you consider the matter of murder, but we acknowledge that it requires examination.”

Prosecution Service Statement

A spokesperson for the prosecution service commented: “Domestic abuse is a terrible offense and our legal officers are regularly instructed 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 in the past prosecuted a several individuals for leading to the fatality of a companion they mistreated, including in proceedings which are ongoing.

“We are also working with police and other parties to ensure these kinds of offences are clearly recognized – so that we can hold offenders accountable for the full extent of their crimes.”