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Every suicide in which the victim had experienced domestic violence should be considered a possible homicide, as per calls from campaigners who seek to hold abusers responsible for the catastrophic impact of their actions.

This step is essential because police and prosecutors are not doing enough to bring perpetrators to justice in cases of self-inflicted death after family violence.

“Time and again, there is widespread breakdown, especially within the legal system, to examine these deaths with the seriousness they warrant,” stated a leader of a campaign group at a significant gathering in London earlier this week.

The meeting, arranged by a group running a “Suicide is Homicide” initiative to advocate for change in the criminal justice system, united relatives who had suffered bereavement to self-inflicted death following family violence.

Individual Accounts of Loss

Sharon Holland experienced the death of her child Chloe Holland in March 2023. Prior to her passing, the young woman had informed her former partner to authorities, providing a lengthy recorded statement as proof about his conduct.

Following her passing, the perpetrator was found guilty of coercive and controlling behavior and imprisoned for 41 months. He was subsequently jailed for three years and seven months 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 parent chose to advocate for a legal change to hold offenders to justice; yet she then realized that regulations were already in place, they just were rarely applied to secure prosecutions.

“I decided it wasn’t a fresh legislation I needed as existing laws were already there, and after finding out how much my daughter had been let down previous to her death by the authorities and numerous services, they needed to do their job properly, and things needed to change,” she said.

“More than four dozen relatives have contacted me and only four of us have had a conviction,” she added. “I was so shocked to see such a large number who have been fighting the police and prosecution service for a long time and getting no justice for their child or sibling and could not speak out in case it affected investigations that weren’t possibly going anywhere.”

Further Heartbreaking Account

Saskia Lightburn Richie’s child Hannah passed away in spring 2017, in what she called “the ultimate abusive action” in a prolonged pattern of mistreatment.

“She was vibrant, she was loving,” she said. “She was full of promise, and she was an amazing, deeply devoted mother to her kids, and she died by suicide after 24 months in a partnership where she was methodically broken down by her companion,” she said.

“She was physically beaten, she was mentally tormented, she was dominated and dismantled piece by piece until she was unable to envision a way forward. The individual who caused this walked free, because we label it self-inflicted death, we conclude the case and we proceed.

“But I could not move on,” she said, “and I have not managed to move on. Honestly, Hannah didn’t just die by suicide. She was killed. She was killed slowly and intentionally over a two year period, and when I went to the police, when I begged them to investigate what he had done to her, I was told that there was no action that they were able to take.

“No inquiry was conducted into her death. The domestic violence fatality analysis, which I had to fight for, required five years and had no impact. A four day inquest found self-inflicted death, notwithstanding huge evidence over a extremely distressing four day period of family violence and failings by multiple services.”

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

She said the self-inflicted death is murder movement was critical “since when someone dies by suicide after they’ve endured family violence, we have to investigate it for what it really is, which is homicide.

“We must use the legislation we currently have properly and it really isn’t happening at the moment, and we need to make perpetrators responsible for pushing their targets to suicide.

“The statutes exist. We require determination, we need police to investigate properly. We need the prosecution authority to take legal action. We need the judiciary to recognize that words and control can kill equally to hands and weapons.”

Political Response

At a follow-up gathering in the House of Commons, chaired by a opposition politician, and attended by the government official, the grieving families again shared their experiences.

A junior minister informed the assembly: “Such fatalities are often dismissed as if they were their own choice, they chose to do this, when, in truth, these were the result of actually, somebody else’s violence, and these aren’t rare incidents.”

“Our law is broken, we know that,” she said. “Especially around murder or unlawful killing, it is fragmented. It lacks statutory basis anyway, it has been developed with common law practices for centuries, and it is no longer fit for purpose, honestly, given the society we currently live in.

“I will not claim that it’s going to be simple to resolve. It is incredibly complex and difficult, particularly when you consider the issue of murder, but we recognize that it needs to be looked at.”

Prosecution Service Statement

A spokesperson for the legal body commented: “Family violence is a terrible crime and our prosecutors are regularly instructed to evaluate murder and manslaughter charges in suicide cases where there is a established background of domestic abuse or other controlling or coercive behavior.

“We have in the past prosecuted a number of defendants for causing the death of a companion they abused, encompassing in cases which are ongoing.

“We are also working with police and other parties to ensure these kinds of offences are clearly recognized – so that we can hold offenders to justice for the full extent of their wrongdoings.”