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Each self-inflicted death in which the deceased had endured abuse at home must be treated as a possible homicide, according to demands from campaigners who seek to hold abusers responsible for the devastating consequences of their behavior.

This step is necessary because police and prosecutors are not doing enough to bring perpetrators to justice in instances of suicide following domestic abuse.

“In case after case, there is widespread breakdown, especially within the criminal justice system, to examine these fatalities with the seriousness they deserve,” stated a co-director of a advocacy organization during a significant gathering in Westminster recently.

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

Personal Stories of Tragedy

Sharon Holland experienced the death of her child Chloe Holland in March 2023. Prior to her passing, the young woman had reported her ex-boyfriend to authorities, providing a lengthy recorded statement as evidence against him.

After her death, the perpetrator was convicted of coercive and controlling behavior and imprisoned for over three years. He was subsequently jailed for three years and seven months after a second woman came forward to disclose that she had been in a harmful partnership with him.

After Chloe’s death, the mother decided to campaign for a legal change to bring perpetrators accountable; yet she then discovered that regulations were existing, they just were rarely applied to achieve convictions.

“I decided it was not a fresh legislation I needed as current statutes were in place, and after learning how much my daughter had been failed before her death by the police and numerous services, they had to do their job properly, and things required reform,” she said.

“Over 47 families have found me and just a handful of us have had a guilty verdict,” she continued. “I was astonished to see so many families who have been fighting the police and prosecution service for a long time and getting no justice for their offspring or brother or sister and didn’t have a voice in case it impacted inquiries 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 described as “the final act of violence” in a prolonged pattern of mistreatment.

“Hannah was energetic, 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 two years in a relationship where she was methodically broken down by her companion,” she said.

“She was physically beaten, she was psychologically tortured, she was controlled and broken down piece by piece until she could not see a path ahead. The individual who did this to her walked free, because we call it suicide, we conclude the case and we proceed.

“But I could not move on,” she said, “and I haven’t been able to let go. Honestly, Hannah did not merely take her own life. She was murdered. 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 passing. The domestic violence fatality analysis, which I had to struggle to obtain, required five years and changed nothing. A four day inquest determined death by suicide, despite huge evidence over a extremely distressing four day period of domestic abuse and shortcomings by multiple services.”

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

She said the suicide is homicide movement was critical “because when an individual takes their own life after they’ve suffered domestic abuse, we have to investigate it for what it really is, which is murder.

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

“The statutes exist. We require determination, we need law enforcement to investigate properly. We need the Crown Prosecution Service to take legal action. We need judges to understand that verbal abuse and manipulation can kill just as much as hands and weapons.”

Political Response

At a follow-up gathering in the Parliament, led by a opposition politician, and attended by the safeguarding minister, the bereaved relatives again told their stories.

A junior minister informed the assembly: “Such fatalities are often dismissed as if they were their decision, they chose to do this, when, reality, these were the culmination of actually, another person’s abuse, and these aren’t rare incidents.”

“Our law is broken, we know that,” she said. “Especially around murder or unlawful killing, it is piecemeal. It lacks statutory basis anyway, it has been developed with common law practices for centuries, 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 incredibly complex and challenging, particularly when you consider the issue of homicide, but we recognize that it needs to be looked at.”

Prosecution Service Statement

A spokesperson for the legal body commented: “Domestic abuse is a heinous offense and our prosecutors are regularly instructed to evaluate murder and manslaughter charges in suicide cases where there is a established background of family violence or other manipulative conduct.

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

“We are also working with law enforcement and other stakeholders to ensure these types of crimes are well-understood – so that we can bring perpetrators accountable for the complete scope of their wrongdoings.”