🔗 Share this article

Every suicide where the deceased had experienced domestic violence should be considered a possible homicide, as per demands from advocates who seek to hold abusers responsible for the devastating impact of their actions.

This step is essential because law enforcement are not doing enough to bring perpetrators to justice in cases of self-inflicted death after family violence.

“Time and again, there is widespread breakdown, particularly within the legal system, to examine these deaths with the gravity they warrant,” remarked a co-director of a advocacy organization at a significant gathering in Westminster recently.

The assembly, organized by a group running a “Self-Inflicted Death is Murder” initiative to advocate for reform in the legal framework, united families who had suffered bereavement to self-inflicted death following domestic abuse.

Individual Accounts of Loss

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 ex-boyfriend to authorities, providing a lengthy recorded statement as proof about his conduct.

After her death, the perpetrator was found guilty of manipulative and domineering conduct and imprisoned for over three years. He was subsequently sentenced for an additional term after a second woman stepped up 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 bring perpetrators accountable; yet she then discovered that laws were already in place, they just weren’t often being used to secure prosecutions.

“I decided it wasn’t a new law I needed as current statutes were already there, and after finding out how much my child had been let down before her taking her life by the authorities and many other agencies, they had to fulfill their duties, and practices 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 astonished to see so many families who have been fighting the authorities and CPS for years and receiving no resolution for their offspring or sibling and could not speak out in case it affected inquiries that weren’t possibly going anywhere.”

Further Heartbreaking Account

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 loving,” she stated. “She was full of promise, and she was an amazing, really loving mum to her kids, and she took her own life after two years in a partnership where she was methodically broken down by her partner,” she explained.

“She endured physical assaults, 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 self-inflicted death, we close the file and we proceed.

“But I could not move on,” she remarked, “and I haven’t been able to move on. Honestly, she didn’t just die by suicide. She was murdered. She was killed slowly and intentionally over a 24-month span, and when I went to the police, when I pleaded with them to investigate what he had done to her, I was informed 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 struggle to obtain, took five years and changed nothing. A lengthy coroner’s hearing found death by suicide, notwithstanding substantial proof over a very traumatic four day period of domestic abuse and shortcomings by multiple services.”

The parent informed the gathering that for eight years she has “struggled against a establishment that ignores what is obvious”.

She said the suicide is homicide movement was vital “since when someone dies by suicide after they’ve endured domestic abuse, we have to examine it for what it truly represents, which is murder.

“We need to use the legislation we already possess effectively and it really isn’t happening at the present, and we need to hold abusers accountable for driving their victims to death.

“We have the laws. We require determination, we need law enforcement to investigate properly. 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 physical force and arms.”

Political Response

At a follow-up gathering in the Parliament, led by a Labour MP, and including the government official, the bereaved relatives again shared their experiences.

A parliamentary under-secretary told the meeting: “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 actually, somebody else’s violence, and these are not rare incidents.”

“The legal system is flawed, we are aware,” she stated. “Especially around murder or unlawful killing, it is fragmented. It lacks statutory basis anyway, it has been shaped with traditional legal customs for centuries, and it is no longer fit for purpose, quite frankly, given the society we inhabit today.

“I will not claim that it’s going to be easy to fix. It is incredibly complex and challenging, particularly when you consider the issue of murder, but we acknowledge that it requires examination.”

Legal Authority Comment

A representative for the legal body said: “Family violence is a terrible crime and our legal officers 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 cases which are ongoing.

“We are also working with law enforcement and other stakeholders to ensure these types of crimes are clearly recognized – so that we can hold offenders accountable for the full extent of their wrongdoings.”