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Every suicide where the victim had experienced abuse at home must be treated as a potential homicide, according to demands from campaigners who aim to make perpetrators responsible for the catastrophic impact of their actions.

This move is necessary because law enforcement 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 legal system, to examine these fatalities with the gravity they warrant,” remarked a leader of a campaign group at a significant gathering in Westminster earlier this week.

The meeting, arranged by a group running a “Self-Inflicted Death is Murder” initiative to advocate for change in the criminal justice system, united families 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. Before her death, the young woman had informed her former partner to police, providing a lengthy recorded statement as proof about his conduct.

After her death, the perpetrator was convicted of coercive and controlling behavior and imprisoned for over three years. He was later sentenced for an additional term after a second woman came forward to report that she had been in a violent and abusive relationship with him.

In the wake of her loss, the mother decided to campaign for a new law to hold offenders to justice; yet she then realized that laws were already in place, they just were rarely applied to achieve convictions.

“I decided it was not a fresh legislation I needed as existing laws were in place, and after finding out how much my child had been let down before her taking her life by the police and numerous services, they had to do their job properly, and practices needed to change,” she said.

“More than four dozen relatives have contacted me and just a handful of us have had a guilty verdict,” she continued. “I was astonished to see so many families who have been battling the police and CPS for years and getting no justice for their child or brother or sister and didn’t have a voice in case it impacted inquiries that were not progressing.”

Another Tragic Case

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

“Hannah was energetic, she was caring,” she stated. “She had great potential, and she was an amazing, really loving mum to her two children, and she took her own life after two years in a partnership where she was systematically destroyed by her companion,” she explained.

“She was physically beaten, she was mentally tormented, she was dominated and broken down piece by piece until she was unable to envision a way forward. The man who caused this walked free, because we call it self-inflicted death, we close the file and we move on.

“Yet I was unable to continue,” she remarked, “and I haven’t been able to move on. Honestly, Hannah 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 begged them to look into what he had done to her, I was told that there was nothing that they could do.

“No inquiry was conducted into her passing. The domestic homicide review, which I had to fight for, required five years and had no impact. A four day inquest found death by suicide, despite huge evidence over a extremely distressing four day period of family violence and shortcomings by multiple services.”

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

She said the suicide is homicide campaign was vital “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 homicide.

“We need to use the legislation we currently have properly and it really isn’t happening at the moment, and we need to make perpetrators responsible for pushing their targets to suicide.

“The statutes exist. We require determination, we need police to investigate properly. We need the Crown Prosecution Service to prosecute. We need the judiciary to recognize that words and control can cause death just as much as physical force and arms.”

Government Reaction

At a second meeting in the House of Commons, chaired by a Labour MP, and attended by the safeguarding minister, the bereaved relatives again told their stories.

A parliamentary under-secretary informed the assembly: “Such fatalities are often dismissed as if they were their own choice, they chose to do this, when, in truth, these were the culmination of in fact, another person’s abuse, and these are not rare incidents.”

“Our law is broken, we are aware,” she stated. “Especially around homicide or manslaughter, it is piecemeal. It lacks statutory basis regardless, it has been developed with traditional legal customs for centuries, and it is no longer fit for purpose, honestly, it’s the world we inhabit today.

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

Prosecution Service Statement

A spokesperson for the prosecution service commented: “Family violence is a heinous crime and our legal officers are regularly instructed to consider homicide allegations in suicide cases where there is a known context of domestic abuse or other controlling or coercive behavior.

“We have previously charged a number of defendants for leading to the fatality of a partner they mistreated, including in proceedings which are currently active.

“We are collaborating with police and other stakeholders to guarantee these types of crimes are clearly recognized – so that we can hold offenders accountable for the complete scope of their crimes.”