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Each self-inflicted death in which the victim had experienced abuse at home must be considered a potential murder case, according to demands from advocates who aim to make perpetrators responsible for the catastrophic consequences of their behavior.

This move is necessary because law enforcement are failing to bring perpetrators to justice in cases of self-inflicted death following family violence.

“Time and again, there is systemic and structural failure, particularly within the criminal justice system, to examine these fatalities with the gravity they warrant,” remarked a leader of a campaign group at a landmark gathering in London earlier this week.

The assembly, arranged by a organization running a “Suicide is Homicide” campaign to advocate for change in the legal framework, united relatives 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 authorities, submitting a two-hour video interview as evidence about his conduct.

Following her passing, the individual was convicted of coercive and controlling behavior and imprisoned for 41 months. He was subsequently jailed for three years and seven months after a second woman came forward to disclose that she had been in a harmful partnership with him.

After Chloe’s death, the mother chose to advocate for a new law to bring perpetrators to justice; however she then discovered that regulations were existing, they just were rarely applied to secure prosecutions.

“I concluded it was not a fresh legislation I required as existing laws were already there, and after learning how much my daughter had been failed before her death by the police and numerous services, they needed to fulfill their duties, and things required reform,” she explained.

“Over 47 families have found me and just a handful of us have had a guilty verdict,” she added. “I was astonished to see such a large number who have been battling the authorities and CPS for years and receiving no resolution for their offspring 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 daughter her 30-year-old daughter passed away in May 2017, in what she described as “the ultimate abusive action” in a campaign of abuse.

“Hannah was energetic, she was caring,” she said. “She had great potential, and she was an amazing, deeply devoted mother to her two children, and she died by suicide after two years in a partnership where she was systematically destroyed by her companion,” she said.

“She endured physical assaults, she was mentally tormented, she was controlled and dismantled gradually until she was unable to envision a way forward. The individual who did this to her walked free, because we label it self-inflicted death, we conclude the case and we move on.

“But I could not move on,” she remarked, “and I haven’t been able to let go. Honestly, she didn’t just die by suicide. She was killed. She was killed slowly and deliberately over a 24-month span, and when I approached the authorities, when I begged them to look into 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 struggle to obtain, required five years and changed nothing. A lengthy coroner’s hearing found self-inflicted death, despite substantial proof over a extremely distressing multi-day session of family violence and failings by multiple services.”

The mother informed the gathering that for eight years she has “struggled against a system that refuses to see what is obvious”.

She emphasized the self-inflicted death is murder campaign was vital “since when someone takes their own life after they’ve suffered domestic abuse, we have to investigate it for what it really is, which is murder.

“We must apply the laws we already possess effectively and it is not occurring at the present, and we need to hold abusers accountable 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 judges to recognize that verbal abuse and manipulation can cause death equally to physical force and arms.”

Political Response

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

A junior minister told the meeting: “These deaths are often dismissed as if they were their decision, they opted for this, when, reality, these were the culmination of in fact, somebody else’s violence, and these aren’t isolated stories.”

“Our law is broken, we know that,” she said. “Especially around murder or manslaughter, it is piecemeal. It lacks statutory basis anyway, it has been shaped with common law practices for generations, and it is outdated, quite frankly, given the society we inhabit today.

“I’m not going to pretend that it’s going to be easy to fix. 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 spokesperson for the legal body commented: “Family violence is a heinous offense and our legal officers are regularly instructed to evaluate homicide allegations in self-inflicted death instances where there is a known context of family violence or other controlling or coercive behavior.

“We have previously charged a number of defendants for leading to the fatality of a companion they abused, including in proceedings which are ongoing.

“We are also working with law enforcement and other parties to ensure these types of crimes are well-understood – so that we can bring perpetrators accountable for the full extent of their crimes.”