🔗 Share this article

Each self-inflicted death where the victim had endured abuse at home must be considered a possible homicide, according to demands from campaigners who aim to make perpetrators accountable for the catastrophic impact of their behavior.

This move is essential because law enforcement are failing to bring perpetrators accountable in cases of self-inflicted death following family violence.

“Time and again, there is widespread breakdown, especially within the criminal justice system, to scrutinise these deaths with the gravity they deserve,” stated a leader of a campaign group at a landmark meeting in Westminster recently.

The assembly, arranged by a organization running a “Suicide is Homicide” campaign to advocate for reform in the legal framework, brought together relatives who had lost loved ones to suicide after domestic abuse.

Individual Accounts of Tragedy

Sharon Holland experienced the death of her child Chloe Holland in March 2023. Prior to her passing, Chloe had informed her former partner to police, providing a lengthy recorded statement 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 subsequently sentenced for an additional term after a second woman stepped up to disclose that she had been in a harmful partnership with him.

After Chloe’s death, the parent chose to advocate for a new law to bring perpetrators accountable; however she then discovered that regulations were existing, they just weren’t often being used to secure prosecutions.

“I decided it was not a new law I needed as existing laws were already there, and after finding out how much my child had been let down previous to her taking her life by the police and many other agencies, they had to fulfill their duties, and practices needed to change,” she said.

“More than four dozen relatives have contacted me and only four 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 a long time and receiving no resolution for their offspring or brother or sister and didn’t have a voice in case it impacted inquiries that weren’t possibly going anywhere.”

Another Tragic Case

One mother’s child her 30-year-old daughter died in spring 2017, in what she called “the final act of violence” in a campaign of abuse.

“Hannah was vibrant, she was loving,” she said. “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 systematically destroyed by her partner,” she said.

“She was physically beaten, she was mentally tormented, she was dominated and broken down piece by piece until she was unable to envision a way forward. The man who caused this went unpunished, because we label it suicide, we close the file and we move on.

“Yet I was unable to continue,” she said, “and I haven’t been able to let go. In truth, Hannah didn’t just die by suicide. 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 look into what he had done to her, I was informed that there was nothing that they were able to take.

“No inquiry was conducted into her death. The domestic homicide review, which I had to struggle to obtain, took five years and had no impact. A four day inquest found death by suicide, despite huge evidence over a very traumatic multi-day session of domestic abuse and shortcomings by various agencies.”

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

She emphasized the self-inflicted death is murder campaign was critical “because when someone takes their own life after they’ve endured family violence, we have to investigate it for what it really is, which is homicide.

“We need to apply the laws we already possess effectively and it really isn’t happening at the present, and we need to make perpetrators responsible for pushing their targets to suicide.

“The statutes exist. We require determination, 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 equally to hands and weapons.”

Political Response

At a second meeting in the House of Commons, chaired by a opposition politician, and attended by the government official, the grieving families again told their stories.

A junior minister told the meeting: “These deaths are often written off as if they were their own choice, they opted for this, when, reality, these were the culmination of in fact, somebody else’s violence, and these aren’t rare incidents.”

“Our law is broken, we are aware,” she stated. “Particularly around murder or manslaughter, it is piecemeal. It’s not written in statute anyway, it has been developed with common law practices for centuries, and it is no longer fit for purpose, quite frankly, given the society we inhabit today.

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

Prosecution Service Statement

A representative for the legal body said: “Family violence is a heinous crime and our legal officers are regularly instructed to consider 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 several individuals for leading to the fatality of a companion they abused, including in cases which are currently active.

“We are collaborating with law enforcement and other parties to guarantee these kinds of offences are well-understood – so that we can bring perpetrators accountable for the complete scope of their wrongdoings.”