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Every suicide in which the victim had endured domestic violence must be considered a potential homicide, according to demands from campaigners who seek to hold abusers accountable for the devastating consequences of their behavior.

This step is necessary because police and prosecutors are not doing enough to hold offenders accountable in cases of self-inflicted death following family violence.

“Time and again, there is widespread breakdown, especially within the legal system, to scrutinise these fatalities with the gravity they deserve,” remarked a co-director of a advocacy organization during a landmark meeting in London earlier this week.

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

Individual Accounts of Tragedy

Sharon Holland lost her daughter Chloe Holland in March 2023. Before her death, the young woman had informed her former partner to authorities, submitting a lengthy recorded statement as proof against him.

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 violent and abusive relationship with him.

In the wake of her loss, the parent decided to campaign for a new law to hold offenders accountable; however she then discovered that regulations were already in place, they just weren’t often being used to secure prosecutions.

“I decided it was not a new law I required as current statutes were in place, and after learning how much my child had been let down previous to her death by the authorities and many other agencies, they had to fulfill their duties, and practices needed to change,” she said.

“Over 47 families have found me and only four of us have had a guilty verdict,” she continued. “I was astonished to see so many families who have been battling the authorities and CPS for years and receiving no resolution for their child or sibling and could not speak out in case it affected investigations that weren’t possibly going anywhere.”

Another Tragic Case

Saskia Lightburn Richie’s child her 30-year-old daughter died in spring 2017, in what she called “the final act of violence” in a campaign of abuse.

“Hannah was vibrant, she was caring,” she said. “She had great potential, and she was an exceptional, deeply devoted mother to her kids, and she took her own life after 24 months in a partnership where she was systematically destroyed by her companion,” she explained.

“She was physically beaten, she was psychologically tortured, she was controlled and dismantled piece by piece until she could not see a path ahead. The man who did this to her walked free, because we label it self-inflicted death, we close the file and we proceed.

“But I could not move on,” she said, “and I haven’t been able to move on. In truth, 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 begged them to look into what he had done to her, I was informed that there was no action that they could do.

“There was no investigation into her death. The domestic violence fatality analysis, which I had to struggle to obtain, required five years and changed nothing. A lengthy coroner’s hearing found self-inflicted death, despite substantial proof over a extremely distressing four day period of domestic abuse and failings by various agencies.”

The parent informed the gathering that for a decade she has “struggled against a establishment that ignores what is obvious”.

She emphasized the self-inflicted death is murder movement was vital “because when someone takes their own life after they’ve suffered family violence, we have to examine it for what it really is, which is murder.

“We need to apply the laws we currently have effectively and it is not occurring at the present, and we need to make perpetrators responsible for driving their victims to death.

“We have the laws. We require determination, we need police to conduct thorough inquiries. We need the prosecution authority to prosecute. We need judges to understand that words and control can cause death just as much as hands and weapons.”

Government Reaction

At a second meeting in the Parliament, led by a Labour MP, and including the safeguarding minister, the grieving families again told their stories.

A junior minister informed the assembly: “Such fatalities are often dismissed as if they were their own choice, they opted for this, when, in truth, these were the culmination of in fact, another person’s abuse, and these aren’t rare incidents.”

“The legal system is flawed, we know that,” she stated. “Especially around murder or unlawful killing, it is fragmented. It lacks statutory basis regardless, it has been shaped with traditional legal customs for generations, 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 simple to resolve. It is extremely complicated and difficult, especially when you consider the issue of homicide, but we acknowledge that it requires examination.”

Prosecution Service Statement

A spokesperson for the prosecution service commented: “Domestic abuse is a terrible crime and our prosecutors are regularly instructed to consider homicide allegations 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 causing the death of a companion they abused, including in proceedings which are ongoing.

“We are also working with police and other stakeholders to ensure these types of crimes are well-understood – so that we can hold offenders to justice for the complete scope of their crimes.”