🔗 Share this article

Every suicide where the victim had experienced domestic violence should be considered a potential homicide, according to demands from campaigners who seek to hold abusers accountable for the devastating impact of their behavior.

This step is essential because police and prosecutors are failing to bring perpetrators to justice in cases of suicide following family violence.

“In case after case, there is widespread breakdown, particularly within the legal system, to examine these deaths with the seriousness they deserve,” remarked a co-director of a advocacy organization at a landmark meeting in London recently.

The meeting, arranged by a organization leading a “Suicide is Homicide” campaign to fight for reform in the criminal justice system, united families who had suffered bereavement to suicide following family violence.

Individual Accounts of Tragedy

Sharon Holland lost her daughter her 23-year-old daughter in spring 2023. Before her death, the young woman had informed her former partner to authorities, submitting a two-hour video interview as evidence against him.

Following her passing, the perpetrator was found guilty of manipulative and domineering conduct and imprisoned for over three years. He was later sentenced for three years and seven months after a second woman stepped up 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 legal change to bring perpetrators to justice; however she then realized that regulations were already in place, they just weren’t often being used to secure prosecutions.

“I concluded it wasn’t a new law I required as current statutes were in place, and after finding out how much my child had been failed before her taking her life by the authorities and numerous services, they needed to do their job properly, and things needed to change,” she said.

“More than four dozen relatives have found me and just a handful of us have had a conviction,” she continued. “I was so shocked to see such a large number who have been fighting the authorities and CPS for years and receiving no resolution for their child or brother or sister and didn’t have a voice in case it affected inquiries that weren’t possibly going anywhere.”

Further Heartbreaking Account

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

“Hannah was vibrant, she was loving,” she stated. “She was full of promise, and she was an exceptional, really loving mum to her kids, 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 psychologically tortured, she was dominated and broken down gradually until she was unable to envision a path ahead. The individual who caused this walked free, because we label it self-inflicted death, we conclude the case and we proceed.

“But I could not move on,” she said, “and I haven’t been able to let go. Honestly, she did not merely take her own life. She was murdered. Her death was gradual and intentionally over a two year period, and when I went to the police, when I pleaded with them to look into what he had done to her, I was told that there was no action that they were able to take.

“There was no investigation 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 death by suicide, despite substantial proof over a very traumatic four day period of family violence and failings by various agencies.”

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

She said the suicide is homicide campaign was critical “since when someone dies by suicide after they’ve endured family violence, we have to examine it for what it truly represents, which is homicide.

“We need to apply the laws we already possess effectively 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 conduct thorough inquiries. We need the prosecution authority to take legal action. We need the judiciary to recognize that verbal abuse and manipulation can cause death just as much as hands and weapons.”

Political Response

At a second meeting in the House of Commons, led by a opposition politician, and attended by the government official, the bereaved relatives again shared their experiences.

A parliamentary under-secretary told the meeting: “These deaths 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 aren’t rare incidents.”

“Our law is broken, we know that,” she stated. “Particularly around murder or manslaughter, it is fragmented. It lacks statutory basis anyway, it has been developed 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 easy to resolve. It is incredibly complex and difficult, particularly when you consider the issue of murder, but we recognize that it requires examination.”

Prosecution Service Statement

A representative for the legal body said: “Family violence is a heinous offense and our prosecutors are regularly instructed to evaluate murder and manslaughter charges in suicide cases where there is a known context of family violence or other manipulative conduct.

“We have previously charged a number of defendants for causing the death of a companion they abused, encompassing in proceedings which are currently active.

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