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Every suicide in which the victim had endured abuse at home should be treated as a possible homicide, as per calls from advocates who seek to hold abusers accountable for the catastrophic impact of their actions.

This move is essential because law enforcement are failing to bring perpetrators accountable in instances of suicide following domestic abuse.

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

The assembly, arranged by a group running a “Self-Inflicted Death is Murder” campaign to fight for change in the criminal justice system, united relatives who had suffered bereavement to suicide following family violence.

Personal Stories of Tragedy

Sharon Holland experienced the death of her child her 23-year-old daughter in spring 2023. Before her death, the young woman had informed her former partner to police, submitting a lengthy recorded statement as proof about his conduct.

Following her passing, the individual was convicted of coercive and controlling behavior and jailed for over three years. He was later 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 mother decided to campaign for a new law to hold offenders to justice; yet she then discovered that laws were existing, they just weren’t often being used to achieve convictions.

“I decided it wasn’t a new law I required as current statutes were in place, and after finding out how much my daughter had been failed before her death by the police and numerous services, they had to do their job properly, and practices needed to change,” she said.

“More than four dozen relatives have contacted me and just a handful of us have had a conviction,” she continued. “I was astonished to see so many families who have been fighting the authorities and CPS for years and receiving no resolution for their offspring or brother or sister and didn’t have a voice in case it affected inquiries that were not progressing.”

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 energetic, she was loving,” she said. “She had great potential, and she was an exceptional, really loving mum to her kids, and she died by suicide 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 was unable to envision a way forward. The individual who caused this walked free, because we call it suicide, we conclude the case and we move on.

“But I could not move on,” she said, “and I haven’t been able to move on. Honestly, she didn’t just die by suicide. She was killed. Her death was gradual and deliberately over a 24-month span, and when I went to the police, when I begged them to look into what he had inflicted upon her, I was informed that there was nothing that they could do.

“There was no investigation 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 self-inflicted death, notwithstanding substantial proof over a extremely distressing four day period of family violence and shortcomings by various agencies.”

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

She emphasized the self-inflicted death is murder movement was critical “since when someone dies by suicide after they’ve suffered family violence, we have to examine it for what it truly represents, which is homicide.

“We must use the legislation we already possess properly and it is not occurring at the present, and we need to hold abusers accountable for driving their victims to death.

“The statutes exist. We require determination, we need police to investigate properly. We need the prosecution authority to prosecute. We need the judiciary to understand that verbal abuse and manipulation can cause death equally to physical force and arms.”

Government Reaction

At a follow-up gathering in the House of Commons, chaired by a opposition politician, and including the safeguarding minister, the bereaved relatives again told their stories.

A parliamentary under-secretary told the meeting: “Such fatalities are often written off as if they were their decision, they chose to do this, when, reality, these were the result of actually, another person’s abuse, and these are not rare incidents.”

“Our law is broken, we know that,” she stated. “Particularly around homicide or unlawful killing, it is fragmented. It lacks statutory basis anyway, it has been developed 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 fix. It is incredibly complex and challenging, particularly when you look at the matter of homicide, but we acknowledge that it requires examination.”

Legal Authority Comment

A representative for the legal body said: “Family violence is a heinous offense and our legal officers are actively advised to consider murder and manslaughter charges 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 leading to the fatality of a companion they mistreated, including in proceedings which are ongoing.

“We are collaborating with police and other stakeholders to guarantee these types of crimes are well-understood – so that we can hold offenders to justice for the full extent of their crimes.”