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Every suicide in which the deceased had experienced domestic violence should be considered a possible homicide, as per demands from campaigners who aim to make perpetrators responsible for the devastating consequences of their actions.

This move is essential because police and prosecutors are not doing enough to hold offenders accountable in cases of suicide following family violence.

“Time and again, there is widespread breakdown, particularly within the legal system, to scrutinise these fatalities with the seriousness they warrant,” stated a leader of a advocacy organization during a significant meeting in Westminster recently.

The meeting, arranged by a organization leading a “Self-Inflicted Death is Murder” campaign to advocate for change in the legal framework, brought together relatives who had suffered bereavement to self-inflicted death following family violence.

Individual Accounts of Loss

One mother experienced the death of her child her 23-year-old daughter in March 2023. Before her death, Chloe had informed her former partner to authorities, providing a two-hour video interview as proof about his conduct.

After her death, the individual was found guilty of coercive and controlling behavior and jailed for over three years. He was later jailed for three years and seven months after a second woman stepped up to disclose that she had been in a violent and abusive relationship with him.

After Chloe’s death, the parent decided to campaign for a legal change to bring perpetrators accountable; however she then realized that regulations were existing, they just weren’t often being used to achieve convictions.

“I concluded it wasn’t a new law I required as current statutes were in place, and after finding out how much my daughter had been let down previous to her taking her life by the police and many other agencies, they needed to do their job properly, and practices needed to change,” she explained.

“Over 47 families have contacted me and only four of us have had a conviction,” she added. “I was so shocked to see so many families who have been fighting the authorities and CPS for years and receiving no resolution for their child or brother or sister and didn’t have a voice in case it impacted investigations that weren’t possibly going anywhere.”

Another Tragic Case

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

“Hannah was energetic, she was loving,” she stated. “She was full of promise, and she was an amazing, really loving mum to her kids, and she died by suicide after 24 months in a relationship where she was methodically broken down by her companion,” she explained.

“She was physically beaten, she was mentally tormented, she was dominated and dismantled piece by piece until she could not see a path ahead. The man who did this to her walked free, because we call it self-inflicted death, we close the file and we proceed.

“But I could not move on,” she remarked, “and I have not managed to let go. In truth, she did not merely take her own life. She was killed. Her death was gradual and intentionally over a two year period, and when I approached the authorities, when I begged them to look into what he had inflicted upon her, I was told that there was no action that they were able to take.

“There was no investigation into her death. The domestic homicide review, which I had to struggle to obtain, required five years and had no impact. A four day inquest found death by suicide, despite huge evidence over a very traumatic four day period of family violence and shortcomings by multiple services.”

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

She emphasized the suicide is homicide movement was vital “since when an individual dies by suicide after they’ve endured domestic abuse, we have to examine it for what it really is, which is homicide.

“We must apply the laws we currently have properly and it is not occurring at the present, and we need to hold abusers accountable for driving their victims to death.

“We have the laws. We need the will, we need police to conduct thorough inquiries. We need the Crown Prosecution Service to take legal action. We need the judiciary to recognize that verbal abuse and manipulation can kill equally to physical force and arms.”

Government Reaction

At a follow-up gathering in the House of Commons, led by a opposition politician, and including the government official, the grieving families again told their stories.

A junior minister told the meeting: “These deaths are often written off as if they were their own choice, they opted for this, when, reality, these were the culmination of actually, another person’s abuse, and these are not rare incidents.”

“The legal system is flawed, we are aware,” she stated. “Especially around murder or manslaughter, it is piecemeal. It’s not written in statute regardless, it has been shaped with traditional legal customs for generations, and it is outdated, honestly, given the society we currently live in.

“I will not claim that it’s going to be simple to fix. It is incredibly complex and difficult, particularly when you consider the issue of homicide, but we recognize that it needs to be looked at.”

Legal Authority Comment

A spokesperson for the legal body said: “Family violence is a terrible crime and our legal officers are actively advised to evaluate homicide allegations in self-inflicted death instances where there is a known context of family violence or other controlling or coercive behavior.

“We have in the past prosecuted a number of defendants for leading to the fatality of a companion they mistreated, encompassing in cases which are ongoing.

“We are also working with police and other stakeholders to guarantee these types of crimes are clearly recognized – so that we can bring perpetrators accountable for the full extent of their wrongdoings.”