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Every suicide in which the victim had experienced abuse at home should be considered a possible murder case, as per calls from campaigners who aim to make perpetrators accountable for the devastating impact of their behavior.

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

“In case after case, there is systemic and structural failure, particularly within the criminal justice system, to scrutinise these fatalities with the gravity they deserve,” remarked a co-director of a campaign group during a landmark gathering in London recently.

The assembly, organized by a group leading a “Self-Inflicted Death is Murder” campaign to fight for reform in the criminal justice system, united relatives who had lost loved ones to suicide following family violence.

Individual Accounts of Loss

One mother lost her daughter Chloe Holland in spring 2023. Before her death, the young woman had informed her former partner to police, providing a lengthy recorded statement as evidence about his conduct.

Following her passing, the individual was convicted of manipulative and domineering conduct and jailed for 41 months. He was subsequently jailed for three years and seven months after a second woman stepped up to report that she had been in a violent and abusive relationship with him.

In the wake of her loss, the parent chose to advocate for a new law to hold offenders to justice; however she then realized that regulations were already in place, they just were rarely applied to achieve convictions.

“I concluded it was not a new law I required as existing laws were already there, and after learning how much my daughter had been let down previous to her death by the authorities and many other agencies, they needed to fulfill their duties, and practices needed to change,” she said.

“Over 47 families have found me and just a handful of us have had a conviction,” she added. “I was astonished to see such a large number who have been fighting the police and prosecution service for years and receiving no resolution for their offspring or brother or sister and could not speak out in case it affected investigations that weren’t possibly going anywhere.”

Further Heartbreaking Account

Saskia Lightburn Richie’s daughter her 30-year-old daughter passed away in May 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 was full of promise, and she was an exceptional, really loving mother to her kids, and she took her own life after 24 months in a relationship where she was methodically broken down by her companion,” she explained.

“She endured physical assaults, she was psychologically tortured, she was dominated and dismantled gradually until she was unable to envision a path ahead. The man who caused this walked free, because we label it suicide, we close the file and we move on.

“Yet I was unable to continue,” she said, “and I haven’t been able to let go. In truth, Hannah did not merely take her own life. She was murdered. Her death was gradual and deliberately over a two year period, and when I went to the police, when I pleaded with them to investigate what he had inflicted upon her, I was told that there was nothing that they could do.

“There was no investigation into her passing. The domestic violence fatality analysis, which I had to fight for, took five years and changed nothing. A four day inquest determined self-inflicted death, despite huge evidence over a extremely distressing four day period of domestic abuse and failings by multiple services.”

The parent told the meeting that for a decade she has “been fighting a establishment that refuses to see what is obvious”.

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

“We need to use the legislation we currently have effectively and it really isn’t happening at the present, and we need to make perpetrators responsible for pushing their targets to suicide.

“We have the laws. We need the will, we need police to investigate properly. We need the Crown Prosecution Service to prosecute. We need judges to understand that verbal abuse and manipulation can kill just as much as hands and weapons.”

Political Response

At a second meeting in the Parliament, led by a opposition politician, and attended by the safeguarding minister, the bereaved relatives again shared their experiences.

A parliamentary under-secretary informed the assembly: “These deaths are often written off as if they were their decision, they chose to do this, when, in truth, these were the culmination of in fact, another person’s abuse, and these are not isolated stories.”

“The legal system is flawed, we know that,” she stated. “Particularly around murder or unlawful killing, it is piecemeal. It’s not written in statute anyway, it has been developed with common law practices for generations, and it is outdated, quite frankly, given the society we inhabit today.

“I will not claim that it’s going to be easy to fix. It is incredibly complex and difficult, particularly when you consider the issue of murder, but we acknowledge that it requires examination.”

Prosecution Service Statement

A representative for the legal body said: “Family violence is a heinous crime and our legal officers are regularly instructed to evaluate murder and manslaughter charges in self-inflicted death instances where there is a established background of family violence or other controlling or coercive behavior.

“We have in the past prosecuted a number of defendants for causing the death of a companion they mistreated, including 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 hold offenders to justice for the complete scope of their crimes.”