‘I hope my life saves another.’

Kiena Dawes’ last words before ending her life were a plea for her abuser to be held accountable for the ‘torture’ he put her through – and for no other women to be failed in the way she was.

But while Ryan Wellings was eventually found guilty of assaulting Kiena and subjecting her to prolonged domestic abuse, he was cleared of having any ‘criminal responsibility’ for her death.

High profile trials like Kiena’s ending in not guilty verdicts on manslaughter charges have led families, campaigners and even police and lawyers to call for a new law to ensure perpetrators are held responsible when their abuse leads to a person ending their own life.

Kiena’s Law would see the creation of a new standalone offence for domestic abuse-related suicide.

Campaigners are also calling 
for coercive and controlling behaviour to be included within the ‘dangerous offender’ framework, allowing courts to impose extended sentences.

Kiena’s mother, Angela Dawes, backed calls for a law in her daughter’s name, saying: ‘My girl didn’t want to die. My girl wanted to live. But she lived in fear.’

Nobody in England or Wales has ever been convicted by a jury of manslaughter in relation to domestic abuse victims driven to suicide.

That is despite the grim fact that women in abusive relationships are now more likely to kill themselves than die at the hands of a current or former partner.

In its latest annual report, the Domestic Homicide Project, a programme led by the National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC), recorded 150 suspected domestic abuse-related suicides in England and Wales.

That is up from 98 suicides in the previous 12 months, and significantly higher than the 80 recorded intimate partner homicides.

Yet figures show only 3% have resulted in any kind of prosecution.

When it comes to manslaughter, there has been just one conviction – that of Nicholas Allen, who pleaded guilty and was jailed for 10 years in 2017.

Kiena’s Law

Lancashire’s Police and Crime Commissioner Clive Grunshaw in partnership with charity Advocacy After Fatal Domestic Abuse (AAFDA), hosted a conference in Blackpool last month to launch a petition calling for Kiena’s Law and address concerns about the link between sustained domestic abuse and suicide.

It was accompanied by an exhibition outside featuring 150 pairs of shoes painted blue – one for each woman believed to have been driven to end their lives through domestic abuse.

Mr Grunshaw told WTX: ‘If you can imagine the pain, the anguish, the trauma that somebody must be in for them to be in such circumstances that they feel that taking their own life is the only escape from the abuse they’re enduring, it is horrendous.

‘We believe that the courts and the judicial system need to have the power in those circumstances to get justice for the victims, and there needs to be a greater deterrent for perpetrators.’

Frank Mullane, founder of AAFDA, said law change is critical if perpetrators are to be properly held to account.

He told WTX juries are ‘struggling’ with the link between domestic abuse and suicide and the legal concept of ‘causation’.

Defence teams are also being left free to ‘exploit any mental health difficulties the deceased may have had – even though some or all of those difficulties may have been caused or contributed to, by the abuse’.

‘Causation’ and the link between domestic abuse and suicide

In simple terms, causation is proof that a defendant’s conduct contributed to a victim’s death in a ‘significant’ way.

Several problems arise from that in cases of domestic abuse-related suicide.

They include the victim likely being nowhere near the defendant when they die and the suicide being seen as a ‘choice’ freely made by the deceased.

Another obvious difficulty is the absence of the victim’s voice from the witness box.

In that void, defendants can point the jury in the direction of myriad other issues to explain why they may have taken their own life, minimising the effects of their abusive behaviour and avoiding accountability for it.

Jurors are then left with what can appear to be a choice between either the abuse or the victim’s mental health as factors behind the decision to end their life, rather than an appreciation of how the two are intrinsically linked.

Dr Anne Lodge, a senior lecturer in law at Teesside University, told WTX: ‘Too often, suicide is treated as a completely independent choice of the victim.

‘But where someone has been subjected to years of coercive control, their autonomy may have been so eroded that they no longer see any other way out – they may be effectively stripped of their freedom to make choices.

‘That’s something the law needs to recognise.’

Tim Woodhouse, suicide prevention researcher at the University of Kent, found that one in three suicides in the county between 2018 and 2024 were impacted to some extent by domestic abuse.

If that number was applied nationwide, it could mean as many as 1,000 domestic abuse victims are taking their lives each year.

Mr Woodhouse told WTX: ‘Being physically abused, sexually attacked and emotionally tortured, week after week, month after month, is clearly exceptionally damaging to anyone’s mental health.

‘It’s made even worse when the person abusing you is someone you once loved.

‘So, on the one hand, it’s easy to understand why such a high number of victims are killing themselves, but we are just beginning to understand that these tragic deaths actually happen for a number of different reasons.

‘Some victims have been beaten so badly in the past that believe that they are going to be murdered by their perpetrator, so they attempt suicide as a way of controlling the way they die – even though they don’t actually want to stop living.

‘Others attempt suicide because they believe the lies that their perpetrator tells them, for example that their family and friends hate them and the world would be a better place without them it.

‘Finally other victims feel so isolated, trapped and helpless, that they simply can’t see another way of making the abuse stop.

‘Many of the victims in this group will have reached out to services like the police, the family court, domestic abuse charities and social services but not got the support they needed to make the abuse stop.’

In 2022, a coroner ruled that Jessica Laverack, 34, ended her life at her home in East Yorkshire after suffering domestic abuse.

Hers was the first inquest to make clear the link between domestic abuse and suicide.

Phyllis Daly, Jessica’s mother, told the Blackpool conference coercive control ‘leaves few visible signs, but can destroy a victim’s life’.

‘Jessica stated that she felt she had no escape and her life wasn’t her own anymore,’ she said. ‘She was trapped, miserable and fearful.’

She added: ‘Sustained domestic abuse that ends in suicide is not incidental. It’s a foreseeable outcome, a preventable outcome, and accountability has to follow.’

‘I didn’t want to end my life – I wanted the fear to end’

Dr Lodge said: ‘Many victims already have existing vulnerabilities, whether that is previous trauma or mental health difficulties.

‘Those factors can be used by the defence to argue that the abuse was not a sufficient or significant enough cause of the suicide.

‘This narrative potentially downplays the devastating impact prolonged coercive control can have and makes it harder to hold perpetrators criminally responsible for manslaughter.’

The conference got a harrowing glimpse of what a jury might hear if a victim could give evidence at their own manslaughter trial.

One survivor bravely spoke publicly for the first time about how she contemplated ending her life.

‘When people hear the words domestic abuse, they often imagine bruises, broken bones, black eyes,’ she said.

‘But abuse is rarely defined by one incident. It took years and a whole new vocabulary – gaslighting, stonewalling, coercive control – before I fully understood what had happened.’

She added: ‘People often think suicide is about wanting to die. For me, it wasn’t.

‘I didn’t want to end my life. I wanted the fear to end. I wanted the intrusive thoughts to end. I wanted to feel safe again.

‘There is a profound difference between wanting a life to end – all the things you love – and desperately wanting unbearable pain to stop, because when you’re in so much pain you can’t feel anything anyway.

‘No joy, no pleasure, no hope. You’re not living anymore anyway.

‘When someone dies after domestic abuse, we often ask “why did they take their own life?”

‘Perhaps we should begin by asking a different question – “what happened in the years before they died?”’

Local MPs Chris Webb and Lorraine Beavers pledged to campaign for Kiena’s Law in Parliament.

And Jess Phillips, the former minister for safeguarding and violence against women and girls (VAWG), told the conference ‘justice is evading us’ currently but insisted the issue is ‘a fundamental part’ of the government’s VAWG strategy.

Ministers are ‘keen to look at what the solutions are in this space’, she added.

A Government spokesperson said: ‘We are committed to halving violence against women and girls, and our thoughts remain with all those who have lost loved ones as a result of domestic abuse.

‘We have now introduced better protection for victims by strengthening the management of offenders convicted of controlling and coercive behaviour.

‘The Law Commission is currently reviewing homicide law, including the use of manslaughter offences where abuse may have driven someone to suicide.’

‘Girls shouldn’t have to die to be heard’

During Wellings’ trial, the jury heard he was an ‘entitled, aggressive bully’ who would regularly slap and ‘rag’ Kiena by her hair.

He also threatened to use a drill to take her teeth out and ‘make her look like Katie Piper’ by throwing acid in her face.

More than once police were called, but Wellings threatened Kiena that she would have their daughter taken off them if she told them what was happening, so she declined to help prosecute him.

A final assault ‘broke’ Kiena, leaving her needing hospital treatment. This time she did make a statement to police and her tormentor was arrested.

He then broke his bail conditions but was not locked up, leaving her feeling let down by police.

Four days later she killed herself.

In her suicide note, she wrote: ‘The end. I fought hard, I fought long. I went through pain no-one could imagine.

‘I was murdered. Ryan Wellings killed me. He ruined every bit of strength I had left. I had dreams. I had a future at one point. That was taken away from me.’

But Wellings’ defence team described Kiena as a ‘very troubled young lady’ who ended her life not because of him, but because of ‘multiple factors’ including the loss of her father.

They also pointed to the fact she had made several attempts to end her life in the past, before she met Wellings.

Mr Mullane said: ‘Kiena’s Law represents an opportunity to recognise the devastating and sometimes fatal consequences of coercive and controlling behaviour, improve accountability and help prevent future deaths.

‘We owe it to Kiena and to every family affected by domestic abuse-related suicide to make that change.’

Mrs Dawes added: ‘Girls shouldn’t have to die to be heard, and my daughter had to die to be heard.

‘Nothing is ever going to bring my baby back, but if we can change things moving forward, I’d hate to see another family go through what we’ve been through.’

You can sign the petition Kiena’s Law: Recognise domestic abuse–related suicide in law by clicking here.

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