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Every suicide in which the victim had endured abuse at home must be treated as a potential homicide, according to calls from advocates who aim to hold abusers responsible for the devastating consequences of their actions.

This move is necessary because police and prosecutors are failing to hold offenders to justice in cases of suicide after family violence.

“In case after case, there is systemic and structural failure, particularly within the legal system, to scrutinise these deaths with the seriousness they warrant,” remarked a leader of a advocacy organization during a significant gathering in London earlier this week.

The assembly, arranged by a group running a “Self-Inflicted Death is Murder” campaign to fight for reform in the criminal justice system, united relatives who had suffered bereavement to self-inflicted death after family violence.

Individual Accounts of Loss

One mother lost her daughter her 23-year-old daughter in March 2023. Before her death, the young woman had reported her ex-boyfriend to police, providing a lengthy recorded statement as proof about his conduct.

After her death, the individual was convicted of coercive and controlling behavior and imprisoned for over three years. He was later sentenced for three years and seven months after a another victim came forward to report 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 hold offenders to justice; however she then discovered that laws were already in place, they just were rarely applied to secure prosecutions.

“I decided it wasn’t a new law I needed as existing laws were already there, and after finding out how much my daughter had been failed previous to her death by the police and numerous services, they needed to fulfill their duties, and practices required reform,” she said.

“More than four dozen relatives have contacted me and just a handful of us have had a conviction,” she added. “I was so shocked to see such a large number who have been battling the police and prosecution service for a long time and receiving no resolution for their child or brother or sister and didn’t have a voice in case it affected inquiries that were not progressing.”

Another Tragic Case

One mother’s child Hannah died in spring 2017, in what she described as “the ultimate abusive action” in a campaign of abuse.

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

“She endured physical assaults, she was mentally tormented, she was dominated and broken down piece by piece until she was unable to envision a way forward. The individual who did this to her walked free, because we call it suicide, we conclude the case and we move on.

“Yet I was unable to continue,” she said, “and I haven’t been able to move on. Honestly, Hannah didn’t just die by suicide. She was murdered. She was killed slowly and deliberately over a 24-month span, and when I approached the authorities, when I begged them to investigate what he had inflicted upon her, I was told that there was nothing that they could do.

“There was no investigation into her passing. The domestic homicide review, which I had to fight for, took five years and had no impact. A four day inquest determined self-inflicted death, despite substantial proof 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 “struggled against a system that ignores what is right in front of it”.

She said the suicide is homicide campaign was vital “because when someone takes their own life after they’ve endured family violence, we have to examine it for what it truly represents, which is murder.

“We need to use the legislation we currently have effectively and it really isn’t happening at the moment, 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 Crown Prosecution Service to take legal action. We need judges to recognize that words and control can kill equally to hands and weapons.”

Government Reaction

At a second meeting in the House of Commons, led by a opposition politician, and including the safeguarding minister, the bereaved relatives again shared their experiences.

A parliamentary under-secretary informed the assembly: “These deaths are often dismissed as if they were their own choice, they opted for 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 are aware,” she said. “Especially around homicide or manslaughter, it is fragmented. It’s not written in statute anyway, it has been shaped with traditional legal customs for centuries, and it is no longer fit for purpose, honestly, it’s the world we inhabit today.

“I’m not going to pretend that it’s going to be easy to resolve. It is extremely complicated and challenging, particularly when you look at the issue of homicide, but we acknowledge that it requires examination.”

Legal Authority Comment

A spokesperson for the legal body said: “Family violence is a heinous crime and our legal officers are actively advised to consider homicide allegations in suicide cases where there is a established background of family violence or other manipulative conduct.

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

“We are collaborating with police and other parties to ensure these kinds of offences are well-understood – so that we can hold offenders to justice for the complete scope of their crimes.”