Every suicide where the deceased had experienced abuse at home must be treated as a possible murder case, according to demands from advocates who seek to hold abusers accountable for the catastrophic impact of their actions.
This step is necessary because police and prosecutors are failing to hold offenders accountable in instances of self-inflicted death following family violence.
“In case after case, there is widespread breakdown, especially within the criminal justice system, to examine these deaths with the gravity they deserve,” remarked a leader of a advocacy organization during a landmark gathering in Westminster earlier this week.
The meeting, organized by a group running a “Suicide is Homicide” campaign to advocate for reform in the criminal justice system, united relatives who had lost loved ones to suicide after family violence.
Personal Stories of Tragedy
One mother lost her daughter Chloe Holland in spring 2023. Before her death, the young woman had informed her former partner to police, submitting a two-hour video interview as proof against him.
After her death, the perpetrator was convicted of coercive and controlling behavior and imprisoned for 41 months. He was later jailed for three years and seven months after a another victim came forward to disclose that she had been in a harmful partnership with him.
After Chloe’s death, the parent chose to advocate for a legal change to hold offenders to justice; however she then discovered that regulations were already in place, they just were rarely applied to achieve convictions.
“I concluded it wasn’t a new law I needed as current statutes were in place, and after finding out how much my daughter had been failed previous to her taking her life by the authorities and numerous services, they had to do their job properly, and practices required reform,” she explained.
“More than four dozen relatives have contacted me and only four 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 CPS for a long time and getting no justice for their offspring or brother or sister and could not speak out in case it affected investigations 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.
“Hannah was energetic, she was loving,” she said. “She was full of promise, and she was an exceptional, really loving mother to her two children, and she took her own life after two years in a partnership where she was systematically destroyed by her partner,” she said.
“She was physically beaten, she was mentally tormented, she was controlled and dismantled piece by piece until she could not see a path ahead. The man who did this to her went unpunished, because we label it suicide, we close the file and we move on.
“Yet I was unable to continue,” she remarked, “and I haven’t been able to let go. Honestly, Hannah didn’t just die by suicide. She was murdered. Her death was gradual and intentionally over a 24-month span, and when I approached the authorities, when I begged them to look into what he had inflicted upon her, I was told that there was no action that they were able to take.
“No inquiry was conducted into her passing. The domestic homicide review, which I had to struggle to obtain, took five years and had no impact. A four day inquest found self-inflicted death, notwithstanding substantial proof over a extremely distressing four day period of family violence and failings by various agencies.”
The mother informed the gathering that for eight years 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 critical “since when someone dies by suicide after they’ve endured family violence, 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 prosecution authority to prosecute. We need judges to understand that verbal abuse and manipulation can cause death equally to physical force and arms.”
Government Reaction
At a second meeting in the House of Commons, led by a opposition politician, and attended by the safeguarding minister, the bereaved relatives again told their stories.
A parliamentary under-secretary informed the assembly: “These deaths are often dismissed as if they were their decision, they opted for this, when, in truth, these were the result of actually, another person’s abuse, and these are not rare incidents.”
“The legal system is flawed, we are aware,” she said. “Especially 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, quite frankly, it’s the world we currently live in.
“I’m not going to pretend that it’s going to be easy to resolve. It is incredibly complex and challenging, especially when you consider the matter of murder, but we recognize that it needs to be looked at.”
Legal Authority Comment
A spokesperson for the legal body commented: “Family violence is a heinous crime and our legal officers are actively advised to consider murder and manslaughter charges in self-inflicted death instances where there is a established background of family violence or other controlling or coercive behavior.
“We have previously charged a number of defendants 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 ensure these kinds of offences are clearly recognized – so that we can bring perpetrators to justice for the full extent of their crimes.”
