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Each self-inflicted death in which the victim had experienced abuse at home must be considered a possible murder case, as per calls from campaigners who aim to hold abusers accountable for the catastrophic impact of their actions.

This step is essential because police and prosecutors are failing to bring perpetrators accountable in cases of suicide after family violence.

“Time and again, there is widespread breakdown, particularly within the criminal justice system, to scrutinise these deaths with the gravity they warrant,” stated a co-director of a campaign group at a significant gathering in London earlier this week.

The assembly, organized by a group running a “Suicide is Homicide” campaign to advocate for reform in the criminal justice system, brought together relatives who had suffered bereavement to self-inflicted death following domestic abuse.

Individual Accounts of Tragedy

Sharon Holland lost her daughter her 23-year-old daughter in spring 2023. Before her death, Chloe had informed her former partner to police, submitting a two-hour video interview as evidence about his conduct.

After her death, the perpetrator was found guilty of manipulative and domineering conduct and jailed for over three years. He was subsequently sentenced for three years and seven months after a another victim came forward 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 legal change to hold offenders accountable; however she then realized that regulations were already in place, they just weren’t often being used to secure prosecutions.

“I concluded it wasn’t a new law I needed as existing laws were in place, and after finding out how much my daughter had been let down before her death by the authorities and many other agencies, they needed to do their job properly, and things needed to change,” she said.

“Over 47 families have found me and only four of us have had a guilty verdict,” she added. “I was astonished to see such a large number who have been fighting the police and prosecution service for years and receiving no resolution for their offspring or brother or sister and could not speak out in case it affected inquiries that were not progressing.”

Another Tragic Case

Saskia Lightburn Richie’s child Hannah died in spring 2017, in what she described as “the final act of violence” in a prolonged pattern of mistreatment.

“Hannah was energetic, she was loving,” she stated. “She was full of promise, and she was an exceptional, deeply devoted mother to her two children, and she took her own life after 24 months in a partnership where she was methodically broken down by her partner,” she said.

“She was physically beaten, she was mentally tormented, she was controlled and dismantled gradually until she could not see a way forward. The individual who caused this walked free, because we label it self-inflicted death, we close the file and we proceed.

“But I could not move on,” she remarked, “and I have not managed to move on. In truth, she didn’t just die by suicide. She was killed. She was killed slowly and deliberately over a 24-month span, and when I approached the authorities, 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.

“There was no investigation into her passing. The domestic homicide review, which I had to fight for, took five years and changed nothing. A lengthy coroner’s hearing determined death by suicide, despite substantial proof over a extremely distressing multi-day session of family violence and shortcomings by multiple services.”

The mother informed the gathering that for eight years she has “been fighting a system that ignores what is right in front of it”.

She emphasized the suicide is homicide movement was vital “because when someone dies by suicide after they’ve endured domestic abuse, we have to investigate it for what it truly represents, which is murder.

“We must use the legislation we already possess effectively and it is not occurring at the present, and we need to hold abusers accountable for pushing their targets to suicide.

“We have the laws. We need the will, we need law enforcement to conduct thorough inquiries. We need the Crown Prosecution Service to prosecute. We need the judiciary to understand that words and control can cause death just as much as physical force and arms.”

Political Response

At a follow-up gathering in the House of Commons, chaired by a opposition politician, and including the government official, the bereaved relatives again told their stories.

A junior minister told the meeting: “These deaths are often written off as if they were their decision, they chose to do this, when, reality, these were the culmination of in fact, somebody else’s violence, and these are not isolated stories.”

“The legal system is flawed, we are aware,” she said. “Especially around murder or unlawful killing, it is fragmented. It’s not written in statute regardless, it has been developed with common law practices for centuries, and it is outdated, quite frankly, it’s the world we inhabit today.

“I’m not going to pretend that it’s going to be easy to resolve. It is incredibly complex and challenging, especially 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 said: “Domestic abuse is a terrible offense and our prosecutors are regularly instructed to evaluate murder and manslaughter charges in self-inflicted death instances where there is a established background of domestic abuse or other controlling or coercive behavior.

“We have in the past prosecuted a several individuals for causing the death of a partner they abused, encompassing in cases which are ongoing.

“We are collaborating with law enforcement and other stakeholders to guarantee these kinds of offences are well-understood – so that we can hold offenders to justice for the complete scope of their wrongdoings.”