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Every suicide where the deceased had experienced domestic violence should be considered a potential murder case, according to calls from campaigners who seek to make perpetrators responsible for the catastrophic impact of their actions.

This step is essential because law enforcement are failing to bring perpetrators to justice in cases of self-inflicted death after family violence.

“Time and again, there is widespread breakdown, especially within the legal system, to examine these fatalities with the gravity they deserve,” stated a co-director of a advocacy organization at a significant meeting in Westminster recently.

The meeting, arranged by a organization running a “Self-Inflicted Death is Murder” campaign to advocate for reform in the criminal justice system, brought together families who had lost loved ones to suicide following family violence.

Individual Accounts of Tragedy

One mother lost her daughter her 23-year-old daughter in March 2023. Prior to her passing, Chloe had informed her ex-boyfriend to police, submitting a lengthy recorded statement as evidence about his conduct.

Following her passing, the individual was found guilty of coercive and controlling behavior and imprisoned for 41 months. He was later sentenced for three years and seven months after a second woman came forward to report that she had been in a violent and abusive relationship with him.

In the wake of her loss, the parent decided to campaign for a new law to hold offenders accountable; yet she then realized that laws were existing, they just were rarely applied to secure prosecutions.

“I concluded it was not a new law I needed as current statutes were already there, and after finding out how much my daughter had been failed previous to her taking her life by the police and many other agencies, 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 so shocked to see such a large number who have been battling the police and CPS for years and getting no justice for their offspring or sibling and didn’t have a voice in case it impacted investigations that weren’t possibly going anywhere.”

Another Tragic Case

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

“She was vibrant, she was loving,” she stated. “She had great potential, and she was an amazing, deeply devoted mum to her kids, and she took her own life after two years in a partnership where she was methodically broken down by her companion,” she explained.

“She endured physical assaults, she was psychologically tortured, she was controlled and dismantled gradually until she was unable to envision a path ahead. The individual who did this to her walked free, because we label 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. Her death was gradual and intentionally over a 24-month span, and when I went to the police, when I begged 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 death. The domestic homicide review, which I had to struggle to obtain, required five years and changed nothing. A four day inquest determined death by suicide, notwithstanding huge evidence over a extremely distressing multi-day session of family violence and shortcomings by multiple services.”

The parent 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 critical “because when an individual takes their own life after they’ve endured family violence, we have to investigate it for what it really is, which is murder.

“We need to use the legislation we currently have properly and it is not occurring at the present, and we need to make perpetrators responsible for driving their victims to death.

“We have the laws. We require determination, we need police to investigate properly. We need the prosecution authority to take legal action. We need judges to recognize that words and control can kill just as much as physical force and arms.”

Government Reaction

At a second meeting in the House of Commons, chaired by a Labour MP, and attended by the government official, the bereaved relatives again told their stories.

A parliamentary under-secretary informed the assembly: “These deaths are often dismissed as if they were their own choice, they opted for this, when, in truth, these were the culmination of actually, somebody else’s violence, and these aren’t isolated stories.”

“Our law is broken, we are aware,” she said. “Especially around murder or unlawful killing, it is fragmented. It lacks statutory basis anyway, it has been shaped with traditional legal customs for generations, and it is outdated, honestly, it’s the world we currently live in.

“I will not claim that it’s going to be simple to resolve. It is extremely complicated and challenging, especially when you consider the matter of homicide, but we acknowledge that it needs to be looked at.”

Prosecution Service Statement

A spokesperson for the legal body said: “Domestic abuse is a terrible crime and our legal officers are actively advised to consider murder and manslaughter charges in suicide cases where there is a established background of family violence or other manipulative conduct.

“We have previously charged a several individuals for leading to the fatality of a companion they mistreated, including in cases which are ongoing.

“We are collaborating with law enforcement and other stakeholders to ensure these types of crimes are well-understood – so that we can hold offenders to justice for the complete scope of their crimes.”