Police have admitted past mistakes and pledged to investigate more “hidden” cases of violence against women, domestic abusers are driving victims to suicide.
The concession comes from a new report revealing that suicide deaths of domestic abuse victims exceed the number of people killed by intimate partners for the second year in a row.
The 1,012 domestic abuse-related deaths recorded over the past four years have been called “a tough milestone” by the National Police Chiefs Council (NPCC) by Louisa Rolf, the domestic abuse lead. She said she showed “how deeply ingrained violence against women and girls has become in our community.”
Of the 262 domestic abuse-related deaths recorded in England and Wales from the beginning of April 2023 to the end of March last year, 98 were classified as suspected suicide by victims following domestic abuse (SVSDA).
The latest report on the NPCC-led domestic murder project funded by the Ministry of Home Affairs and using live police records also looked into the deaths of someone falling from their height.
Such deaths were recorded over 13 units over four years. Of these, 36% were recorded as SVSDA and 27% were recorded as unexpected deaths.
The three women who died in a fall were pregnant at the time of their death. This is the proportion of reports called “particularly”, given that only five women were pregnant in the entire four-year sample.
This analysis was conducted in collaboration with the women who were murdered by the campaign group. This promotes domestic abuse to become an important police line of investigation into the deaths of women who have fallen from height.
In 2024, the Guardian's Murdered Women Counting Campaign reported on all women allegedly killed by men. At the end of the year, the number of deaths was 80.
Metropolitan Police Vice Chairman Rolf explains that he hopes the number of manslaughter convictions will increase as a result of the new “unexpected death policy,” urging him to consider whether domestic abuse is a contributing factor to individual death.
She said that the UK's “hostile” legal system would prove beyond reasonable doubt that there is a causal relationship between domestic abuse and the person who took his life.
“Of course the burden of proof should sit with the prosecutor,” she said. “But what's really clear from the research and family stories is that in the past, far too many times, investigators miss out on clear patterns of forced and controlled behavior.
“I don't think the police are missing out on the murders being staged [to look like] suicide. However, it is very clear that there is more that we are truly interested in what happened to us to ensure that the evidence at the scene of the incident is being captured and explored very thoroughly. ”
Rolf also said, “I want to be able to answer the questions of the victims' families and see them and say that every possible line of investigation has been followed.”
After the newsletter promotion
She added:
The report also revealed that 68% of victims and/or perpetrators of domestic abuse are known to police or another agency, and called for better information sharing to prevent future deaths.
In 54% of murders in the country, the perpetrators are already known to the police, and in 90% of SVSDA cases, which include a history of forced and dominant behavior, suspects had previously contacted non-police agencies.
The percentage of deaths that were murdered by current or previous partners remained at about 30% over four years, the report found.
The 1,012 domestic abuse-related deaths recorded over the four years include 501 domestic murders. This is 332 from current or former partners and 169 from another adult relative. The most commonly recorded risk factors associated with suspects were mental illness, forced and controlled behavior, alcohol use, and history of drug misuse.
Jess Phillips, Minister for Protection and Violence for Women and Girls, said, “The better we understand the relationship between domestic abuse and murder, suicide and unexpected death, the more we are equipped to prevent women from happening in the first place.”
-
In the UK and Ireland, Samaritans can be contacted on Freephone 116 123 or emailed to jo@samaritans.org or jo@samaritans.ie. In the US, you can call or text the 988 National Suicide Prevention Lifeline. 988lifeline.orgor home to 741741 and connect with a crisis counselor. In Australia, the Crisis Support Service Lifeline is 13 11 14. befriends.org
