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Every suicide in which the victim had experienced abuse at home should be considered a possible murder case, as per demands from advocates who aim to hold abusers accountable for the devastating impact of their behavior.

This move is necessary because law enforcement are not doing enough to bring perpetrators accountable in cases of suicide after family violence.

“In case after case, there is systemic and structural failure, particularly within the criminal justice system, to scrutinise these deaths with the gravity they deserve,” remarked a leader of a campaign group at a significant meeting in Westminster recently.

The assembly, arranged by a organization leading a “Self-Inflicted Death is Murder” initiative to fight for change in the criminal justice system, united relatives who had suffered bereavement to suicide 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 two-hour video interview as proof about his conduct.

After her death, the individual was convicted of coercive and controlling behavior and jailed for over three years. He was subsequently jailed 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 parent decided to campaign for a legal change to hold offenders to justice; however she then discovered that regulations were already in place, they just were rarely applied to secure prosecutions.

“I decided it wasn’t a new law I required as current statutes were already there, and after finding out how much my child had been failed before her death by the authorities and numerous services, they needed to fulfill their duties, and practices needed to change,” she said.

“Over 47 families have contacted me and only four of us have had a guilty verdict,” she continued. “I was astonished to see so many families who have been fighting the authorities and CPS for years and getting no justice for their child or sibling and didn’t have a voice in case it affected investigations that were not progressing.”

Further Heartbreaking Account

Saskia Lightburn Richie’s child Hannah died in spring 2017, in what she described as “the ultimate abusive action” in a campaign of abuse.

“Hannah was energetic, she was caring,” she said. “She had great potential, and she was an exceptional, deeply devoted mum to her two children, and she took her own life after two years in a partnership where she was systematically destroyed by her companion,” she said.

“She endured physical assaults, she was psychologically tortured, she was dominated and broken down gradually until she could not see a way forward. The individual who caused this went unpunished, because we call it suicide, we close the file and we move on.

“But I could not move on,” she remarked, “and I haven’t been able to move on. Honestly, she didn’t just die by suicide. She was killed. She was killed slowly and intentionally over a 24-month span, and when I went to the police, when I pleaded with them to investigate what he had done to her, I was told that there was nothing that they could do.

“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 very traumatic multi-day session of family violence and failings by multiple services.”

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

She emphasized the self-inflicted death is murder movement was vital “since when an individual dies by suicide after they’ve endured domestic abuse, we have to examine it for what it really is, which is murder.

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

“We have the laws. We need the will, we need police to investigate properly. We need the prosecution authority to prosecute. We need judges to understand that words and control can kill equally to hands and weapons.”

Political Response

At a second meeting in the House of Commons, chaired by a opposition politician, and attended by the government official, the bereaved relatives again shared their experiences.

A junior minister informed the assembly: “These deaths are often dismissed as if they were their own choice, they opted for this, when, reality, these were the culmination of actually, somebody else’s violence, and these aren’t rare incidents.”

“Our law is broken, we are aware,” she stated. “Especially around murder or manslaughter, it is piecemeal. It’s not written in statute anyway, it has been developed with traditional legal customs for generations, and it is outdated, quite frankly, given the society we currently live in.

“I’m not going to pretend that it’s going to be simple to resolve. It is extremely complicated and challenging, particularly when you look at the issue of murder, but we recognize that it requires examination.”

Legal Authority Comment

A spokesperson for the prosecution service commented: “Domestic abuse is a terrible crime and our prosecutors are actively advised to evaluate murder and manslaughter charges in suicide cases where there is a established background of family violence or other controlling or coercive behavior.

“We have previously charged a several individuals for leading to the fatality of a companion they abused, encompassing in proceedings which are currently active.

“We are collaborating with law enforcement and other parties to ensure these types of crimes are clearly recognized – so that we can hold offenders accountable for the complete scope of their wrongdoings.”