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Every suicide where the victim had experienced abuse at home must be treated as a potential homicide, as per demands from campaigners who seek to hold abusers responsible for the catastrophic consequences of their actions.

This step is necessary because law enforcement are not doing enough to bring perpetrators accountable in instances of self-inflicted death following family violence.

“In case after case, there is widespread breakdown, especially within the legal system, to scrutinise these deaths with the seriousness they warrant,” stated a co-director of a campaign group during a significant gathering in Westminster recently.

The assembly, organized by a group leading a “Self-Inflicted Death is Murder” initiative to advocate for reform in the legal framework, united relatives who had lost loved ones to suicide after family violence.

Individual Accounts of Loss

One mother experienced the death of her child Chloe Holland in March 2023. Prior to her passing, Chloe had reported her ex-boyfriend to authorities, submitting a two-hour video interview as proof against him.

Following her passing, the individual was found guilty of coercive and controlling behavior and imprisoned for over three years. He was later 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 parent decided to campaign for a new law to hold offenders to justice; however she then realized that laws were existing, they just weren’t often being used to secure prosecutions.

“I concluded it was not a fresh legislation I required as existing laws were already there, 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 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 so shocked to see so many families who have been battling the authorities and prosecution service for years and getting no justice for their child or brother or sister and could not speak out in case it impacted inquiries that weren’t possibly going anywhere.”

Another Tragic Case

Saskia Lightburn Richie’s child her 30-year-old daughter passed away in May 2017, in what she described as “the ultimate abusive action” in a campaign of abuse.

“Hannah was vibrant, she was caring,” she stated. “She was full of promise, and she was an exceptional, really loving mother to her two children, and she died by suicide after 24 months in a relationship where she was methodically broken down by her partner,” she explained.

“She was physically beaten, she was psychologically tortured, she was dominated and broken down gradually until she could not see a path ahead. The man who caused this walked free, because we call it self-inflicted death, we conclude the case and we move on.

“Yet I was unable to continue,” she remarked, “and I haven’t been able to move on. Honestly, Hannah did not merely take her own life. She was murdered. Her death was gradual and intentionally over a 24-month span, and when I approached the authorities, when I pleaded with them to look into what he had inflicted upon her, I was informed that there was nothing that they were able to take.

“No inquiry was conducted into her death. The domestic homicide review, which I had to struggle to obtain, took five years and had no impact. A four day inquest found death by suicide, despite huge evidence over a extremely distressing multi-day session of family violence and shortcomings by multiple services.”

The parent informed the gathering that for eight years she has “struggled against a system that refuses to see what is right in front of it”.

She emphasized the suicide is homicide campaign was critical “because when an individual dies by suicide after they’ve suffered family violence, we have to examine it for what it truly represents, which is murder.

“We need to use the legislation we already possess properly and it really isn’t happening at the moment, and we need to hold abusers accountable for driving their victims to death.

“We have the laws. We need the will, we need law enforcement to investigate properly. We need the Crown Prosecution Service to take legal action. We need judges to recognize that words and control can cause death equally to physical force and arms.”

Political Response

At a follow-up gathering in the Parliament, chaired by a Labour MP, and including the government official, the bereaved relatives again told their stories.

A parliamentary under-secretary informed the assembly: “Such fatalities are often written off as if they were their own choice, they chose to do this, when, in truth, these were the result of in fact, somebody else’s violence, and these aren’t rare incidents.”

“Our law is broken, we know that,” she said. “Particularly around homicide or manslaughter, it is piecemeal. It’s not written in statute regardless, it has been developed with common law practices for generations, and it is no longer fit for purpose, quite frankly, 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 look at the issue of homicide, but we acknowledge that it needs to be looked at.”

Prosecution Service Statement

A representative for the prosecution service said: “Domestic abuse is a heinous offense and our prosecutors are regularly instructed to consider homicide allegations in self-inflicted death instances where there is a known context of family violence or other controlling or coercive behavior.

“We have previously charged a number of defendants for causing the death of a partner they mistreated, encompassing in cases which are ongoing.

“We are collaborating with police and other parties to guarantee these types of crimes are well-understood – so that we can bring perpetrators accountable for the full extent of their wrongdoings.”