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Every suicide in which the victim had endured domestic violence should be treated as a potential murder case, as per demands from campaigners who aim to hold abusers responsible for the devastating impact of their actions.

This step is essential because police and prosecutors are failing to hold offenders accountable in cases of suicide following family violence.

“In case after case, there is systemic and structural failure, particularly within the criminal justice system, to examine these deaths with the seriousness they deserve,” stated a co-director of a advocacy organization at a significant meeting in London earlier this week.

The assembly, arranged by a group running a “Self-Inflicted Death is Murder” initiative to fight for reform in the criminal justice system, united relatives who had lost loved ones to self-inflicted death following domestic abuse.

Individual Accounts of Tragedy

Sharon Holland lost her daughter Chloe Holland in spring 2023. Before her death, Chloe had informed her former partner to police, submitting a lengthy recorded statement as proof against him.

After her death, the perpetrator was convicted of manipulative and domineering conduct and imprisoned for over three years. He was subsequently jailed for an additional term after a second woman stepped up to report that she had been in a harmful partnership with him.

In the wake of her loss, the mother chose to advocate for a new law to bring perpetrators to justice; yet she then discovered that laws were existing, they just were rarely applied to secure prosecutions.

“I concluded it wasn’t a fresh legislation I needed as current statutes were already there, and after learning how much my daughter had been let down before her death by the authorities and numerous services, they needed to fulfill their duties, and things needed to change,” she explained.

“More than four dozen relatives have contacted me and just a handful of us have had a guilty verdict,” she added. “I was astonished to see so many families who have been battling the police and prosecution service for years and getting no justice for their offspring or sibling and didn’t have a voice in case it impacted investigations that weren’t possibly going anywhere.”

Further Heartbreaking Account

Saskia Lightburn Richie’s child Hannah died in May 2017, in what she described as “the ultimate abusive action” in a prolonged pattern of mistreatment.

“She was vibrant, she was caring,” she said. “She was full of promise, and she was an amazing, really loving mum to her two children, and she died by suicide after 24 months in a relationship where she was methodically broken down by her companion,” she said.

“She was physically beaten, she was psychologically tortured, she was controlled and dismantled piece by piece until she was unable to envision a path ahead. The man who caused this went unpunished, because we call it suicide, we conclude the case and we proceed.

“But I could not move on,” she said, “and I haven’t been able to let go. Honestly, Hannah did not merely take her own life. She was killed. She was killed slowly and deliberately over a 24-month span, and when I approached the authorities, when I pleaded with them to look into what he had inflicted upon her, I was informed that there was nothing that they could do.

“There was no investigation into her passing. The domestic violence fatality analysis, which I had to struggle to obtain, required five years and changed nothing. A four day inquest found self-inflicted death, notwithstanding substantial proof over a extremely distressing multi-day session of domestic abuse and shortcomings by multiple services.”

The mother informed the gathering that for eight years she has “struggled against a establishment that ignores what is right in front of it”.

She said the suicide is homicide movement was vital “since when an individual dies by suicide after they’ve suffered family violence, we have to investigate it for what it really is, which is murder.

“We must apply the laws we currently have properly and it is not occurring at the moment, and we need to hold abusers accountable for driving their victims to death.

“We have the laws. We need the will, we need police to conduct thorough inquiries. We need the prosecution authority to prosecute. We need the judiciary to recognize that verbal abuse and manipulation can kill equally to hands and weapons.”

Government Reaction

At a follow-up gathering in the House of Commons, chaired by a Labour MP, and attended by the safeguarding minister, the bereaved relatives again shared their experiences.

A junior minister told the meeting: “Such fatalities are often dismissed as if they were their decision, they opted for this, when, in truth, these were the result of in fact, another person’s abuse, and these are not rare incidents.”

“The legal system is flawed, we are aware,” she said. “Especially around homicide or manslaughter, it is fragmented. It’s not written in statute regardless, it has been shaped with common law practices for centuries, and it is no longer fit for purpose, honestly, it’s the world we currently live in.

“I’m not going to pretend that it’s going to be easy to fix. It is extremely complicated and difficult, especially when you look at the matter of homicide, but we acknowledge that it needs to be looked at.”

Prosecution Service Statement

A representative for the prosecution service said: “Family violence is a heinous offense and our legal officers are regularly instructed to evaluate homicide allegations in self-inflicted death instances where there is a known context of family violence or other controlling or coercive behavior.

“We have previously charged a several individuals for leading to the fatality of a partner they abused, including in cases which are currently active.

“We are collaborating with police and other parties to ensure these kinds of offences are clearly recognized – so that we can bring perpetrators accountable for the full extent of their wrongdoings.”