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Each self-inflicted death where the victim had endured abuse at home should 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 move is essential because police and prosecutors are not doing enough to hold offenders accountable in instances of suicide after family violence.

“Time and again, there is widespread breakdown, especially within the criminal justice system, to scrutinise these fatalities with the gravity they deserve,” remarked a co-director of a campaign group at a landmark gathering in London earlier this week.

The meeting, arranged by a group running a “Suicide is Homicide” initiative to advocate for change in the legal framework, united families who had suffered bereavement to suicide after family violence.

Personal Stories of Tragedy

Sharon Holland lost her daughter her 23-year-old daughter in March 2023. Prior to her passing, the young woman had informed her ex-boyfriend to authorities, providing a two-hour video interview as evidence about his conduct.

After her death, the perpetrator was found guilty of manipulative and domineering conduct and imprisoned for 41 months. He was later sentenced for an additional term after a second woman stepped up to disclose that she had been in a harmful partnership with him.

In the wake of her loss, the parent chose to advocate for a new law to bring perpetrators to justice; yet she then discovered that laws were already in place, they just were rarely applied to achieve convictions.

“I decided it wasn’t a fresh legislation I needed as current statutes were in place, and after finding out how much my daughter had been let down before her taking her life by the police and numerous services, they had to fulfill their duties, and things needed to change,” she explained.

“Over 47 families have found me and just a handful of us have had a guilty verdict,” she continued. “I was so shocked to see such a large number who have been battling the authorities and prosecution service for years and getting no justice for their child or sibling and didn’t have a voice in case it impacted inquiries that weren’t possibly going anywhere.”

Another Tragic Case

One mother’s daughter Hannah died in spring 2017, in what she called “the final act of violence” in a campaign of abuse.

“Hannah was vibrant, she was loving,” she said. “She had great potential, and she was an amazing, deeply devoted mother to her two children, and she took her own life after two years in a relationship where she was systematically destroyed by her partner,” she explained.

“She endured physical assaults, she was psychologically tortured, she was controlled and broken down gradually until she was unable to envision a path ahead. The man who caused this walked free, because we label it suicide, we close the file and we proceed.

“Yet I was unable to continue,” she said, “and I haven’t been able to let go. In truth, Hannah didn’t just die by suicide. She was killed. She was killed slowly and intentionally over a 24-month span, and when I approached the authorities, when I pleaded with them to look into what he had done to 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 fight for, took five years and changed nothing. A lengthy coroner’s hearing found death by suicide, notwithstanding huge evidence over a very traumatic four day period of family violence and failings by multiple services.”

The parent told the meeting that for eight years she has “struggled against a system that refuses to see what is obvious”.

She said the self-inflicted death is murder campaign was critical “because when an individual takes their own life after they’ve suffered domestic abuse, we have to examine it for what it really is, which is homicide.

“We need to apply the laws 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 need the will, we need police to conduct thorough inquiries. We need the prosecution authority to take legal action. We need the judiciary to recognize that words and control can kill equally to hands and weapons.”

Political Response

At a follow-up gathering in the House of Commons, led by a opposition politician, and attended by the government official, the bereaved relatives again told their stories.

A parliamentary under-secretary told the meeting: “Such fatalities are often written off as if they were their decision, they chose to do this, when, reality, 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. “Especially around murder or unlawful killing, it is fragmented. It’s not written in statute anyway, it has been developed with traditional legal customs for centuries, and it is outdated, 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 issue of murder, but we recognize that it requires examination.”

Legal Authority Comment

A representative for the legal body commented: “Family violence is a terrible offense and our prosecutors are regularly instructed to consider murder and manslaughter charges 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 partner they mistreated, encompassing in proceedings which are ongoing.

“We are collaborating with law enforcement and other stakeholders to ensure these types of crimes are clearly recognized – so that we can hold offenders to justice for the complete scope of their wrongdoings.”