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Every suicide where the deceased had endured domestic violence should be considered a potential homicide, according to demands from campaigners who seek to hold abusers accountable for the devastating impact of their actions.

This step is essential because police and prosecutors are failing to hold offenders accountable in instances of self-inflicted death after family violence.

“In case after case, there is widespread breakdown, particularly within the criminal justice system, to examine these deaths with the seriousness they warrant,” remarked a leader of a advocacy organization during a significant meeting in Westminster earlier this week.

The assembly, organized by a organization running a “Suicide is Homicide” initiative to advocate for change in the criminal justice system, brought together families who had suffered bereavement to suicide after domestic abuse.

Personal Stories of Loss

One mother lost her daughter her 23-year-old daughter in March 2023. Before her death, Chloe had informed her ex-boyfriend to police, submitting a two-hour video interview as evidence about his conduct.

After her death, the perpetrator was convicted of manipulative and domineering conduct and imprisoned for 41 months. He was subsequently sentenced for three years and seven months after a another victim came forward to disclose that she had been in a harmful partnership with him.

In the wake of her loss, the mother decided to campaign for a legal change to hold offenders accountable; yet she then discovered that laws were existing, they just weren’t often being used to achieve convictions.

“I concluded it was not a fresh legislation I required as existing laws were already there, and after learning how much my child had been failed previous to her taking her life by the authorities and many other agencies, they had to fulfill their duties, and things required reform,” she explained.

“More than four dozen relatives have found me and just a handful 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 receiving no resolution for their child or sibling and didn’t have a voice in case it affected investigations that weren’t possibly going anywhere.”

Further Heartbreaking Account

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

“She was energetic, she was caring,” she said. “She was full of promise, and she was an amazing, deeply devoted mother to her kids, and she took her own life after 24 months in a partnership where she was systematically destroyed by her partner,” she explained.

“She was physically beaten, she was mentally tormented, she was controlled and dismantled piece by piece until she was unable to envision a way forward. The man who caused this walked free, because we call it suicide, we conclude the case and we move on.

“But I could not move on,” she remarked, “and I have not managed to let go. In truth, she did not merely take her own life. She was killed. She was killed slowly and intentionally over a two year period, and when I went to the police, when I begged them to investigate what he had inflicted upon her, I was told that there was nothing that they could do.

“There was no investigation into her passing. The domestic homicide review, which I had to fight for, required five years and changed nothing. A four day inquest determined self-inflicted death, notwithstanding substantial proof over a extremely distressing multi-day session of family violence and shortcomings by various agencies.”

The mother told the meeting that for a decade she has “been fighting a establishment that refuses to see what is obvious”.

She emphasized the self-inflicted death is murder campaign was critical “because when someone takes their own life after they’ve endured family violence, we have to investigate it for what it really is, which is homicide.

“We must 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 conduct thorough inquiries. We need the prosecution authority to take legal action. We need judges to understand that verbal abuse and manipulation can cause death just as much as hands and weapons.”

Political Response

At a second meeting in the House of Commons, led by a opposition politician, and attended by the government official, the grieving families again told their stories.

A junior minister informed the assembly: “Such fatalities are often written off as if they were their decision, they chose to do this, when, reality, these were the result of in fact, somebody else’s violence, and these aren’t rare incidents.”

“Our law is broken, we are aware,” she stated. “Especially around homicide or unlawful killing, it is piecemeal. It lacks statutory basis regardless, it has been shaped with common law practices for generations, and it is outdated, quite frankly, it’s the world we inhabit today.

“I’m not going to pretend that it’s going to be easy to resolve. It is extremely complicated and challenging, particularly when you consider the issue of murder, but we recognize that it needs to be looked at.”

Prosecution Service Statement

A spokesperson for the legal body said: “Domestic abuse is a terrible offense and our legal officers are regularly instructed to evaluate homicide allegations in suicide cases where there is a established background of family violence or other manipulative conduct.

“We have in the past prosecuted a several individuals for causing the death of a companion they abused, encompassing in cases which are currently active.

“We are also working with law enforcement and other stakeholders to ensure these kinds of offences are well-understood – so that we can bring perpetrators accountable for the complete scope of their wrongdoings.”