🔗 Share this article

Every suicide where the deceased had experienced abuse at home must be treated as a potential homicide, according to calls from campaigners who aim to make perpetrators accountable for the devastating consequences of their actions.

This step is essential because police and prosecutors are failing to hold offenders accountable in instances of suicide following domestic abuse.

“Time and again, there is widespread breakdown, particularly within the legal system, to examine these fatalities with the seriousness they deserve,” stated a leader of a campaign group at a significant meeting in Westminster recently.

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

Individual Accounts of Loss

Sharon Holland experienced the death of her child Chloe Holland in March 2023. Prior to her passing, Chloe had reported her ex-boyfriend to police, submitting a two-hour video interview as proof about his conduct.

After her death, the perpetrator was found guilty of coercive and controlling behavior and jailed for over three years. He was subsequently jailed for an additional term after a second woman 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 new law to hold offenders accountable; yet she then realized that laws were already in place, they just weren’t often being used to achieve convictions.

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

“More than four dozen relatives have contacted me and only four of us have had a conviction,” she added. “I was so shocked to see such a large number who have been battling the police and CPS for a long time and getting no justice for their child or brother or sister and could not speak out in case it affected investigations that weren’t possibly going anywhere.”

Another Tragic Case

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

“She was vibrant, she was loving,” she said. “She had great potential, and she was an amazing, deeply devoted mum 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 explained.

“She endured physical assaults, she was psychologically tortured, she was controlled and broken down piece by piece until she was unable to envision a way forward. The man who did this to her walked free, because we call it self-inflicted death, we close the file 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 murdered. Her death was gradual and deliberately over a two year period, and when I approached the authorities, when I pleaded with them to look into what he had done to her, I was informed that there was nothing that they could do.

“No inquiry was conducted into her passing. The domestic homicide review, which I had to struggle to obtain, required five years and changed nothing. A four day inquest found death by suicide, notwithstanding substantial proof over a very traumatic four day period of domestic abuse and shortcomings by various agencies.”

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

She said the suicide is homicide campaign was critical “since when an individual dies by suicide after they’ve suffered domestic abuse, we have to investigate it for what it truly represents, which is murder.

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

“The statutes exist. We need the will, we need law enforcement to conduct thorough inquiries. We need the Crown Prosecution Service to take legal action. We need judges to understand that verbal abuse and manipulation can kill equally to hands and weapons.”

Government Reaction

At a second meeting in the House of Commons, chaired by a opposition politician, and attended by 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 rare incidents.”

“The legal system is flawed, we know that,” she stated. “Particularly around homicide or manslaughter, it is piecemeal. It lacks statutory basis anyway, it has been shaped with common law practices for centuries, and it is no longer fit for purpose, honestly, it’s the world we inhabit today.

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

Legal Authority Comment

A representative for the prosecution service commented: “Family violence is a heinous crime and our prosecutors are actively advised to evaluate homicide allegations in self-inflicted death instances where there is a known context of domestic abuse 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, encompassing in proceedings which are currently active.

“We are also working with police and other parties to ensure these types of crimes are clearly recognized – so that we can bring perpetrators to justice for the full extent of their crimes.”