Hours before she hanged herself in 2023, Katie Madden spoke on the telephone with her abusive former partner, Jonathon Russell, who had been banned from contacting her after an alleged assault. After hearing testimony at the inquest into her death, the coroner cited Ms Madden’s long, toxic relationship with Mr Russell as a contributory factor in her suicide. But there has been no criminal investigation into her death.
As our reporting this week has highlighted, this is a tragic but far too familiar story. The Domestic Homicide Project, a programme led by the National Police Chiefs’ Council, recorded 98 such suspected suicides following domestic abuse in 2024, compared with 80 cases where victims were killed by their partners.
