🔗 Share this article

Each self-inflicted death where the deceased had endured abuse at home must be treated as a potential murder case, as per calls from advocates who seek to hold abusers accountable for the devastating impact of their actions.

This move is essential because law enforcement are not doing enough to bring perpetrators to justice in instances of self-inflicted death following family violence.

“In case after case, there is widespread breakdown, particularly within the legal system, to examine these fatalities with the gravity they warrant,” stated a leader of a campaign group during a significant gathering in Westminster recently.

The assembly, arranged by a organization leading a “Suicide is Homicide” initiative to advocate for change in the criminal justice system, united families who had lost loved ones to suicide after family violence.

Individual Accounts of Tragedy

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, submitting a two-hour video interview as evidence about his conduct.

Following her passing, the individual was found guilty of manipulative and domineering conduct and imprisoned for 41 months. He was later jailed for three years and seven months after a another victim came forward to disclose that she had been in a harmful partnership with him.

In the wake of her loss, the mother chose to advocate for a legal change to bring perpetrators to justice; yet she then realized that regulations were already in place, they just weren’t often being used to secure prosecutions.

“I decided it wasn’t a new law I required as current statutes were already there, and after learning how much my daughter had been let down before her death by the authorities and numerous services, they had to fulfill their duties, and practices required reform,” she said.

“Over 47 families have contacted me and only four of us have had a guilty verdict,” she added. “I was so shocked to see so many families who have been fighting the authorities 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 impacted inquiries that were not progressing.”

Another Tragic Case

One mother’s child her 30-year-old daughter passed away in spring 2017, in what she called “the ultimate abusive action” in a prolonged pattern of mistreatment.

“Hannah was energetic, she was loving,” she stated. “She had great potential, and she was an exceptional, really loving mother to her two children, and she died by suicide after two years in a partnership where she was methodically broken down by her partner,” she said.

“She was physically beaten, she was psychologically tortured, she was dominated and dismantled gradually until she could not see a way forward. The individual who did this to her went unpunished, because we call it suicide, we conclude the case and we move on.

“Yet I was unable to continue,” she remarked, “and I haven’t been able to move on. In truth, Hannah didn’t just die by suicide. She was killed. Her death was gradual and deliberately over a 24-month span, and when I approached the authorities, when I begged them to look into what he had done to her, I was told that there was nothing that they could do.

“There was no investigation into her death. The domestic homicide review, which I had to struggle to obtain, required five years and changed nothing. A four day inquest determined self-inflicted death, notwithstanding huge evidence over a extremely distressing four day period of domestic abuse and failings by various agencies.”

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

She said the self-inflicted death is murder campaign was vital “because when someone dies by suicide after they’ve suffered family violence, we have to examine it for what it truly represents, which is homicide.

“We must apply the laws we currently have properly and it is not occurring at the present, and we need to hold abusers accountable for pushing their targets to suicide.

“We have the laws. We need the will, we need law enforcement to investigate properly. We need the prosecution authority to prosecute. We need judges to understand that verbal abuse and manipulation can kill just as much as physical force and arms.”

Government Reaction

At a follow-up gathering in the Parliament, chaired by a Labour MP, and including the safeguarding minister, the grieving families again shared their experiences.

A junior minister told the meeting: “Such fatalities are often written off as if they were their decision, they opted for this, when, in truth, these were the culmination of actually, another person’s abuse, and these are not rare incidents.”

“The legal system is flawed, we know that,” she stated. “Particularly around homicide or unlawful killing, it is piecemeal. It’s not written in statute anyway, it has been developed with common law practices for generations, and it is outdated, quite frankly, given the society we currently live in.

“I will not claim that it’s going to be simple to fix. It is extremely complicated and difficult, particularly when you consider the matter of homicide, but we acknowledge that it requires examination.”

Prosecution Service Statement

A representative for the legal body said: “Family violence is a terrible 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 several individuals for causing the death of a companion they mistreated, encompassing in proceedings which are ongoing.

“We are collaborating with police and other stakeholders to ensure these types of crimes are well-understood – so that we can bring perpetrators to justice for the full extent of their crimes.”