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Every suicide where the victim had experienced domestic violence should be treated as a potential homicide, according to calls from advocates who aim to hold abusers accountable for the devastating consequences of their behavior.

This move is essential because police and prosecutors are not doing enough to hold offenders accountable in cases of self-inflicted death following domestic abuse.

“In case after case, there is systemic and structural failure, especially within the criminal justice system, to scrutinise these fatalities with the gravity they warrant,” stated a co-director of a campaign group during a significant gathering in Westminster earlier this week.

The assembly, arranged by a group running a “Self-Inflicted Death is Murder” initiative to advocate for reform in the legal framework, brought together relatives who had suffered bereavement to self-inflicted death after domestic abuse.

Personal Stories of Tragedy

One mother experienced the death of her child her 23-year-old daughter in spring 2023. Prior to her passing, the young woman had reported her former partner to authorities, providing a two-hour video interview as proof against him.

Following her passing, the perpetrator was found guilty of coercive and controlling behavior and imprisoned for over three years. He was subsequently sentenced for an additional term after a another victim stepped up to disclose 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 discovered that laws were existing, they just were rarely applied to secure prosecutions.

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

“Over 47 families have contacted 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 fighting 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 affected investigations that weren’t possibly going anywhere.”

Further Heartbreaking Account

One mother’s daughter her 30-year-old daughter died in spring 2017, in what she called “the final act of violence” in a campaign of abuse.

“She was energetic, she was loving,” she said. “She had great potential, and she was an exceptional, deeply devoted mum to her two children, and she died by suicide after 24 months in a partnership where she was methodically broken down by her companion,” she explained.

“She was physically beaten, she was psychologically tortured, she was dominated and dismantled piece by piece until she could not see a path ahead. The individual who did this to her walked free, because we call it self-inflicted death, we close the file and we proceed.

“Yet I was unable to continue,” she remarked, “and I have not managed to move on. In truth, she did not merely take her own life. She was killed. She was killed slowly and deliberately 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 nothing that they could do.

“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 determined death by suicide, despite huge evidence over a extremely distressing four day period of family violence and shortcomings by various agencies.”

The mother told the meeting that for eight years she has “been fighting a establishment that ignores what is right in front of it”.

She emphasized the suicide is homicide campaign was critical “because when someone dies by suicide after they’ve endured 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 is not occurring at the moment, and we need to hold abusers accountable for pushing their targets to suicide.

“We have the laws. We need the will, we need police to conduct thorough inquiries. We need the prosecution authority to prosecute. We need the judiciary to recognize that words and control can cause death equally to hands and weapons.”

Government Reaction

At a follow-up gathering in the Parliament, led by a opposition politician, and attended by the safeguarding minister, the bereaved relatives again told their stories.

A parliamentary under-secretary informed the assembly: “These deaths are often written off as if they were their decision, they opted for this, when, reality, these were the culmination of actually, another person’s abuse, and these aren’t isolated stories.”

“Our law is broken, we are aware,” she said. “Particularly around murder or manslaughter, it is piecemeal. It lacks statutory basis regardless, it has been shaped with traditional legal customs for generations, 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 extremely complicated and challenging, particularly when you consider the matter of murder, but we recognize that it needs to be looked at.”

Legal Authority Comment

A spokesperson for the prosecution service commented: “Family violence is a heinous crime and our legal officers are actively advised to evaluate homicide allegations in self-inflicted death instances where there is a established background of domestic abuse or other manipulative conduct.

“We have in the past prosecuted a number of defendants for causing the death of a companion they abused, including in proceedings which are currently active.

“We are collaborating 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 crimes.”