Mother advocates for legal change after daughter’s suicide following domestic abuse

Chloe Holland, a 23-year-old from Portsmouth, took her own life in February after enduring a year of both physical and emotional domestic abuse from her ex-partner, Marc Masterton, who has been sentenced to three and a half years in prison.

Chloe and Marc had known each other since school and entered into a relationship that quickly turned toxic. Now, Chloe’s mother, Sharon, is spearheading a campaign to overhaul the law by pushing for perpetrators of coercive control to be held accountable for manslaughter charges.

Sharon has initiated a petition, which requires 10,000 signatures for recognition and 100,000 for parliamentary debate. Speaking to ITV News Meridian, Sharon Holland said:

“He had hit her a few times, she had sent me some pictures. I then found out more had happened since she took her own life. He controlled what she wore, her makeup, her Facebook, her phone, contact with friends and family and I think it was her finances as well.

I’m campaigning now for him to get the charge, and for perpetrators like him, of manslaughter. With coercive controlling behaviour – he was telling her to take her own life. So to me, he has coerced her into doing that and he’s contributed to her death.”

Ms Holland continued:

“I’m trying to get signatures for this petition, we are emailing all the MPs in the country and councillors as well and hopefully to get to parliament and ask them to consider changing legislation.

I think because I’m in fight mode at the moment – that’s what’s keeping me going. I think once it’s all over that’s when I can actually breathe, I can’t breathe until this is over.

I’ve been speaking to other families who have had exactly the same thing happen to them for the same reason and that’s to men and women, not just women and a lot of them haven’t had any justice at all for their loved ones.”