Guardian revealed<\/a> it was likely that the number of suicides linked to domestic abuse were being vastly underreported, with up to 1,500 victims each year.<\/p>\nOfficial figures collated by the National Police Chiefs\u2019 Council put that figure at 98 for last year \u2013 but it still exceeded the number of intimate partner homicides for the second year running.<\/p>\n
The campaigner Karen Ingala Smith said: \u201cThat we don\u2019t even know how many women taken their lives because of men\u2019s violence is to our society\u2019s shame and reflects how little women\u2019s lives matter. Every woman who ends her own life will have taken many other steps to try to end the abuse before she reaches that point. We need to stop letting women down and make sure there are adequate routes to safety.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dame Nicole Jacobs, the domestic abuse commissioner for England and Wales, said: \u201cIt\u2019s unacceptable that domestic abuse victims are being failed and bereaved families are having to fight for justice because the police didn\u2019t ask the right questions when an unexpected death has occurred.<\/p>\n
\u201cI agree with the call that the police must fully investigate all suicides where domestic abuse is suspected, so that perpetrators can be held to account for their role. But we also need to see better training and guidance provided across the criminal justice system, so the severity of domestic abuse and coercive control is understood and the impact it has on victims\u2019 mental health is fully recognised.\u201d<\/p>\n
She added: \u201cNo perpetrator should escape justice because we failed to look closely enough.\u201d<\/p>\n
Vera Baird KC, a former victims\u2019 commissioner for England and Wales, said suicides \u201ccertainly should\u201d be investigated as homicides \u201cboth from the perspective of driving someone to suicide, which is clearly manslaughter, or the domestic abuse has escalated, as it frequently does to the degree where he has helped her to kill herself\u201d.<\/p>\n
She added: \u201cThere\u2019s no doubt those things should be in the mind of anyone who goes to an unexpected death. And let\u2019s not forget \u2013 sometimes these are not suicides at all. These are murders. The police should have an investigative approach, rather than a tickbox approach. It is outrageous that there is a tickbox approach in the world of domestic abuse.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jess Phillips, the minister for safeguarding and violence against women and girls, said: \u201cEach life lost to domestic abuse is a tragedy, and we must do more to prevent them. Our violence against women and girls strategy launched in December sets what we\u2019re doing to root out the causes of these appalling crimes and strengthen our response to all domestic abuse-related deaths.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are also funding the domestic homicide project to capture information on domestic abuse-related deaths, including suicides, from all police forces to improve our understanding of this issue.\u201d<\/p>\n
The domestic abuse charity Women\u2019s Aid said the findings were \u201ca shocking insight into the reality for so many families who are left bereaved of mothers, daughters and sisters as a result of domestic abuse, but are too often denied justice because their death was not considered to be directly at the hands of their perpetrator\u201d.<\/p>\n
Sarah Davidge, the head of membership, research and evaluation at the charity, said \u201cthe official figures significantly underpresent the reality behind the impact of domestic abuse\u201d, and added that it \u201cis imperative that understanding of the nature and impact of coercive and controlling behaviour is improved across all agencies that come into contact with survivors, through training like that offered by Women\u2019s Aid\u201d.<\/p>\n
There is support across the political spectrum for increasing the number of prosecutions in such cases, and the government has dedicated funding to improving data on lives lost to domestic abuse, including by suicide. \u201cIt is absolutely devastating that over a thousand suicides driven by domestic abuse may be going unreported every year,\u201d said Marie Goldman, the Liberal Democrat spokeswperson for women and equalities.<\/p>\n
\u201cToo often, the systems and laws meant to protect victims simply fail. We need wholesale changes to ensure these horrendous crimes don\u2019t go unpunished and victims and their loved ones finally get justice.<\/p>\n
\u201cLiberal Democrats will push the government to make sure all suicides where domestic abuse is suspected are investigated as potential homicides from the outset,\u201d she added, \u201cso that evidence is preserved and abusers are finally held to account.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mims Davies, the shadow minister for women, said it was \u201cessential that government departments work collectively and urgently to tackle \u2013 and ultimately prevent \u2013 this escalating crisis\u201d.<\/p>\n
She added: \u201cA crucial first step would be to ensure that police officers are fully authorised to access and check the Police National Database (PND), following reports that officers have previously been unable to review records relating to domestic abuse perpetrators.\u201d<\/p>\n
In the UK, Samaritans can be contacted on freephone 116 123 and the domestic abuse helpline is 0808 2000 247. In the US, the suicide prevention lifeline is 988 and the domestic violence hotline is 1-800-799-SAFE (7233). In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is on 13 11 14 and the national family violence counselling service is on 1800 737 732. Other international helplines can be found via www.befrienders.org<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Politicians and experts have thrown their weight behind calls for suicides to be investigated as potential homicides in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":432756,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[49,50,51,47,52,48],"class_list":["post-432755","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/432755","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=432755"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/432755\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/432756"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=432755"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=432755"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=432755"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}