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Every suicide in which the deceased had experienced abuse at home must be considered a potential homicide, as per demands from campaigners who seek to make perpetrators responsible for the devastating impact of their behavior.

This step is essential because police and prosecutors are not doing enough to hold offenders accountable in instances of suicide after domestic abuse.

“In case after case, there is widespread breakdown, particularly within the legal system, to scrutinise these deaths with the gravity they deserve,” stated a leader of a campaign group at a significant meeting in Westminster recently.

The meeting, organized by a group leading a “Self-Inflicted Death is Murder” initiative to advocate for change in the criminal justice system, united families who had lost loved ones to self-inflicted death following family violence.

Individual Accounts of Loss

Sharon Holland lost her daughter Chloe Holland in March 2023. Prior to her passing, the young woman had informed her ex-boyfriend to authorities, submitting a two-hour video interview as proof about his conduct.

Following her passing, the perpetrator was found guilty of coercive and controlling behavior and imprisoned for over three years. He was subsequently jailed for three years and seven months after a another victim stepped up to disclose that she had been in a harmful partnership with him.

After Chloe’s death, 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 achieve convictions.

“I concluded it wasn’t a fresh legislation I required as current statutes were in place, and after finding out how much my child had been failed previous to her taking her life by the authorities and many other agencies, they had to do their job properly, and things needed to change,” she explained.

“Over 47 families have contacted me and only four of us have had a guilty verdict,” she added. “I was so shocked to see such a large number who have been battling the police and CPS for a long time and getting no justice for their offspring or sibling and could not speak out in case it impacted inquiries that were not progressing.”

Another Tragic Case

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

“Hannah was energetic, she was caring,” she said. “She was full of promise, and she was an amazing, deeply devoted mum to her kids, and she took her own life after two years in a partnership where she was methodically broken down by her companion,” she explained.

“She was physically beaten, she was psychologically tortured, she was dominated and broken down piece by piece until she could not see a path ahead. The individual who caused this walked free, because we label it suicide, we close the file and we proceed.

“Yet I was unable to continue,” she remarked, “and I have not managed to move on. Honestly, she didn’t just die by suicide. She was murdered. She was killed slowly and deliberately over a 24-month span, and when I went to the police, when I pleaded with them to investigate what he had inflicted upon her, I was informed that there was nothing that they were able to take.

“There was no investigation into her death. The domestic violence fatality analysis, which I had to fight for, required five years and changed nothing. A lengthy coroner’s hearing found death by suicide, despite substantial proof over a extremely distressing multi-day session of domestic abuse and failings by multiple services.”

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

She emphasized the self-inflicted death is murder movement was vital “since when someone takes their own life after they’ve endured domestic abuse, we have to investigate it for what it really is, which is homicide.

“We must apply the laws we currently have effectively and it really isn’t happening at the present, and we need to hold abusers accountable for pushing their targets to suicide.

“The statutes exist. We need the will, we need police to investigate properly. We need the Crown Prosecution Service to prosecute. We need the judiciary to recognize that verbal abuse and manipulation can kill equally to hands and weapons.”

Political Response

At a second meeting in the House of Commons, led by a opposition politician, and attended by 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 decision, they opted for this, when, in truth, these were the culmination of in fact, somebody else’s violence, and these aren’t isolated stories.”

“The legal system is flawed, we are aware,” she said. “Particularly around murder or unlawful killing, it is fragmented. It’s not written in statute anyway, it has been developed with common law practices for generations, and it is no longer fit for purpose, quite frankly, given the society we currently live in.

“I’m not going to pretend that it’s going to be easy to resolve. It is incredibly complex and challenging, particularly when you look at the matter of murder, but we acknowledge that it needs to be looked at.”

Legal Authority Comment

A representative for the prosecution service commented: “Family violence is a terrible crime and our legal officers are actively advised to consider murder and manslaughter charges in suicide cases where there is a known context 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 currently active.

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