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Every suicide where the deceased had experienced abuse at home should be treated as a potential murder case, according to calls from campaigners who seek to hold abusers responsible for the catastrophic consequences of their actions.

This move is essential because police and prosecutors are not doing enough to hold offenders to justice in instances of suicide following domestic abuse.

“In case after case, there is widespread breakdown, particularly within the criminal justice system, to scrutinise these fatalities with the seriousness they warrant,” remarked a leader of a advocacy organization during a landmark gathering in London recently.

The assembly, organized by a organization running a “Suicide is Homicide” initiative to advocate for reform in the criminal justice system, united relatives who had suffered bereavement to self-inflicted death following domestic abuse.

Personal Stories 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 former partner to authorities, submitting a two-hour video interview as proof about his conduct.

After her death, the individual was convicted of manipulative and domineering conduct and jailed for over three years. He was subsequently sentenced for an additional term after a another victim 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 hold offenders to justice; yet she then realized that laws were existing, they just were rarely applied to achieve convictions.

“I decided it was not a fresh legislation I required as current statutes were already there, and after finding out how much my daughter had been failed before her death by the police and numerous services, they had to do their job properly, and practices required reform,” she explained.

“Over 47 families have found me and only four of us have had a conviction,” she continued. “I was so shocked to see such a large number who have been fighting the police and prosecution service for a long time and getting no justice for their child or brother or sister and could not speak out in case it affected inquiries that weren’t possibly going anywhere.”

Another Tragic Case

One mother’s daughter Hannah died in May 2017, in what she called “the ultimate abusive action” in a campaign of abuse.

“She was energetic, she was caring,” she stated. “She had great potential, and she was an amazing, really loving mum to her kids, and she died by suicide after two years in a relationship where she was systematically destroyed by her companion,” she explained.

“She was physically beaten, she was psychologically tortured, she was controlled and dismantled gradually until she was unable to envision a way forward. The man who did this to her went unpunished, because we label it suicide, we close the file and we move on.

“But I could not move on,” she said, “and I haven’t been able to move on. In truth, she didn’t just die by suicide. 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 investigate what he had inflicted upon her, I was told that there was no action that they were able to take.

“There was no investigation into her death. The domestic violence fatality analysis, which I had to fight for, took five years and changed nothing. A four day inquest determined death by suicide, despite huge evidence over a extremely distressing four day period of domestic abuse and failings by various agencies.”

The mother told the meeting that for eight years she has “been fighting a system that ignores what is obvious”.

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

“We must use the legislation we currently have effectively and it really isn’t happening at the present, and we need to make perpetrators responsible for driving their victims to death.

“We have the laws. We require determination, we need police to conduct thorough inquiries. We need the prosecution authority to prosecute. We need judges to recognize that verbal abuse and manipulation can cause death equally to hands and weapons.”

Government Reaction

At a follow-up gathering in the Parliament, chaired by a Labour MP, and including the government official, the grieving families again told their stories.

A parliamentary under-secretary told the meeting: “Such fatalities are often dismissed as if they were their decision, they chose to do this, when, in truth, these were the culmination of actually, somebody else’s violence, and these aren’t rare incidents.”

“Our law is broken, we know that,” she said. “Especially around homicide or manslaughter, it is piecemeal. It lacks statutory basis regardless, it has been shaped with traditional legal customs for generations, and it is no longer fit for purpose, quite frankly, 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 difficult, especially when you look at the issue of homicide, but we acknowledge that it needs to be looked at.”

Legal Authority Comment

A spokesperson for the prosecution service said: “Domestic abuse is a heinous offense and our legal officers are regularly instructed to evaluate homicide allegations in suicide cases where there is a established background of domestic abuse or other controlling or coercive behavior.

“We have previously charged a several individuals for leading to the fatality of a companion they mistreated, including in cases which are currently active.

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