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Each self-inflicted death where the victim had experienced abuse at home must be considered a possible murder case, as per calls from advocates who seek to hold abusers accountable for the catastrophic consequences of their behavior.

This step is necessary because law enforcement are failing to bring perpetrators to justice in cases of self-inflicted death after domestic abuse.

“Time and again, there is widespread breakdown, particularly within the criminal justice system, to scrutinise these deaths with the gravity they deserve,” stated a co-director of a campaign group during a landmark gathering in London recently.

The meeting, arranged by a group running a “Suicide is Homicide” campaign to fight for reform in the criminal justice system, united relatives who had suffered bereavement to suicide following domestic abuse.

Individual Accounts of Loss

One mother lost her daughter her 23-year-old daughter in spring 2023. Prior to her passing, the young woman had reported her former partner to police, providing a lengthy recorded statement as evidence about his conduct.

Following her passing, the perpetrator was found guilty of coercive and controlling behavior and jailed for 41 months. He was later sentenced for an additional term after a another victim stepped up to report that she had been in a violent and abusive relationship with him.

In the wake of her loss, the mother chose to advocate for a new law to hold offenders accountable; however she then discovered that regulations were already in place, they just weren’t often being used to achieve convictions.

“I concluded it was not a new law I needed as existing laws were already there, and after learning how much my child had been let down before her death by the police and numerous services, they had to fulfill their duties, and practices needed to change,” she said.

“Over 47 families have contacted me and just a handful of us have had a guilty verdict,” she continued. “I was astonished to see so many families who have been fighting the police and prosecution service for years and getting no justice for their child or brother or sister and could not speak out in case it affected inquiries that were not progressing.”

Further Heartbreaking Account

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

“She was vibrant, she was caring,” she stated. “She was full of promise, and she was an exceptional, deeply devoted mum to her two children, and she took her own life after 24 months in a partnership where she was methodically broken down by her companion,” she said.

“She was physically beaten, she was psychologically tortured, she was controlled and broken down gradually until she was unable to envision a way forward. The individual who did this to her went unpunished, because we call it self-inflicted death, we conclude the case and we proceed.

“But I could not move on,” she remarked, “and I haven’t been able to move on. In truth, Hannah did not merely take her own life. She was murdered. She was killed slowly and deliberately over a two year period, and when I approached the authorities, when I pleaded with them to look into what he had inflicted upon her, I was told that there was no action that they could do.

“There was no investigation into her death. The domestic violence fatality analysis, which I had to fight for, required five years and had no impact. A four day inquest determined death by suicide, despite substantial proof over a extremely distressing multi-day session of family violence and shortcomings by various agencies.”

The mother told the meeting that for a decade she has “struggled against a system that ignores what is obvious”.

She emphasized the self-inflicted death is murder movement was critical “since when an individual 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 properly and it really isn’t happening at the present, and we need to hold abusers accountable for driving their victims to death.

“We have the laws. We need the will, we need law enforcement to conduct thorough inquiries. We need the prosecution authority to prosecute. We need judges to recognize that words and control can cause death equally to hands and weapons.”

Political Response

At a follow-up gathering in the House of Commons, led by a Labour MP, and including the safeguarding minister, the grieving families again told their stories.

A junior minister informed the assembly: “These deaths are often dismissed as if they were their own choice, they opted for this, when, reality, these were the culmination of in fact, another person’s abuse, and these aren’t rare incidents.”

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

“I’m not going to pretend that it’s going to be easy to resolve. It is incredibly complex and difficult, especially when you consider the issue of homicide, but we acknowledge that it needs to be looked at.”

Prosecution Service Statement

A spokesperson for the legal body commented: “Domestic abuse 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 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, including in cases which are ongoing.

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