'I didn't know the extent of it until she did what she did'

More victims of domestic abuse take their own lives than are killed directly by perpetrators, reports Amy-Clare Martin as she speaks to a mother whose daughter died following abuse

- Amy-Clare Martin

A grieving mother has said she is facing a “life sentence” after her daughter took her own life to escape her abusive ex-boyfriend – and warned that perpetrators are not being held to account. Sharon Holland said abusers are getting away with driving their victims to suicide, as figures show rates have surged year-on-year and overtaken the number of victims killed by their tormentors for the first time.

In England and Wales, some 93 people are suspected to have taken their own lives between April 2022 and March 2023 after being abused, while 80 people were killed by a current or former partner, according to the national Domestic Homicide Project.

Chloe Holland, 23, died after suffering a year of torment at the hands of Marc Masterton, during which he isolated her, tracked her phone, told her to take her own life, and repeatedly assaulted her. The case was described as one of the most “appalling and heartbreaking” the police investigator had seen.

Chloe’s mother warned that the number of suicides linked to domestic abuse is only the “tip of the iceberg,” as she demanded: “If there are more suicides than killings now, why isn’t more being done?”

Refuge estimates that as many as three women die each week in England and Wales from suicide due to domestic abuse. Perpetrators are rarely charged over the suspected suicides, and, without a victim to give evidence against them, they often escape other domestic violence charges as well.

Despite a total of 216 suicides being linked to domestic abuse since 2020, The Independent can only find evidence of one successful prosecution, in 2017, for manslaughter in such circumstances. Nicholas Allen was jailed for 10 years after his ex-girlfriend Justene Reece took her own life as a “direct result” of his controlling behavior, which included abusive voicemails, texts, and Facebook messages as well as stalking.