Suicides Connected to Domestic Abuse Should Be Investigated as Potential Murders, Urge UK Families

Every suicide where the victim had endured abuse at home must be treated as a potential homicide, as per demands from advocates who seek to make perpetrators responsible for the devastating consequences of their behavior.

This step is essential because law enforcement are failing to hold offenders accountable in cases of suicide following family violence.

“Time and again, there is widespread breakdown, especially within the criminal justice system, to examine these fatalities with the seriousness they warrant,” remarked a co-director of a campaign group at a significant meeting in Westminster recently.

The meeting, organized by a organization leading a “Suicide is Homicide” campaign to advocate for reform in the criminal justice system, brought together families who had suffered bereavement to self-inflicted death after domestic abuse.

Individual Accounts of Loss

Sharon Holland experienced the death of her child her 23-year-old daughter in spring 2023. Before her death, the young woman had reported 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 jailed for over three years. He was subsequently jailed for three years and seven months after a another victim came forward to disclose that she had been in a violent and abusive relationship with him.

In the wake of her loss, the parent chose to advocate for a new law to bring perpetrators accountable; yet she then discovered that laws were already in place, they just were rarely applied to achieve convictions.

“I concluded it wasn’t a new law I required as existing laws were already there, and after learning how much my daughter had been let down before her death by the authorities and numerous services, they needed to do their job properly, and practices required reform,” she explained.

“Over 47 families have contacted me and just a handful of us have had a guilty verdict,” she added. “I was astonished 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 affected inquiries that were not progressing.”

Another Tragic Case

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

“Hannah was vibrant, she was caring,” she said. “She had great potential, and she was an amazing, deeply devoted mum to her kids, and she took her own life after 24 months in a partnership where she was systematically destroyed by her companion,” she explained.

“She endured physical assaults, she was mentally tormented, she was dominated and broken down piece by piece until she could not see a path ahead. The individual who caused this walked free, because we label 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 let go. Honestly, she did not merely take her own life. She was killed. She was killed slowly and intentionally over a 24-month span, and when I went to the police, when I pleaded with them to look into what he had inflicted upon her, I was told that there was nothing that they could do.

“No inquiry was conducted into her passing. The domestic homicide review, which I had to struggle to obtain, required five years and changed nothing. A four day inquest found self-inflicted death, despite substantial proof over a very traumatic four day period of domestic abuse and shortcomings by various agencies.”

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

She emphasized the self-inflicted death is murder campaign was critical “since when an individual 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 apply the laws we currently have properly and it is not occurring at the present, and we need to hold abusers accountable for driving their victims to death.

“The statutes exist. We need the will, we need police to conduct thorough inquiries. We need the prosecution authority to take legal action. We need judges to understand that verbal abuse and manipulation can kill just as much as hands and weapons.”

Government Reaction

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

A junior minister told the meeting: “Such fatalities are often dismissed as if they were their own choice, they chose to do this, when, reality, these were the result of in fact, another person’s abuse, and these are not rare incidents.”

“Our law is broken, we are aware,” she stated. “Especially around murder or manslaughter, 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, honestly, given the society we currently live in.

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

Legal Authority Comment

A spokesperson for the legal body said: “Family violence is a heinous offense and our prosecutors are actively advised to evaluate murder and manslaughter charges in self-inflicted death instances where there is a established background of family violence or other controlling or coercive behavior.

“We have in the past prosecuted a number of defendants for causing the death of a companion they abused, encompassing in cases which are ongoing.

“We are also working with law enforcement and other parties to ensure these types of crimes are well-understood – so that we can hold offenders accountable for the full extent of their crimes.”