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Every suicide in which the victim had endured abuse at home must be treated as a potential homicide, as per calls from advocates who aim to make perpetrators accountable for the catastrophic impact of their behavior.

This move is essential because police and prosecutors are not doing enough to bring perpetrators to justice in instances of suicide after family violence.

“In case after case, there is systemic and structural failure, particularly within the legal system, to scrutinise these fatalities with the gravity they deserve,” remarked a co-director of a advocacy organization at a significant meeting in Westminster earlier this week.

The assembly, organized by a organization leading a “Suicide is Homicide” campaign to fight for reform in the criminal justice system, united relatives who had suffered bereavement to suicide after domestic abuse.

Individual Accounts of Tragedy

One mother experienced the death of her child 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 against him.

After her death, the perpetrator was convicted of coercive and controlling behavior and jailed for over three years. He was subsequently sentenced for an additional term after a another victim stepped up to disclose that she had been in a harmful partnership with him.

In the wake of her loss, the parent chose to advocate for a new law to bring perpetrators accountable; yet she then discovered that laws were existing, they just weren’t often being used to achieve convictions.

“I concluded it wasn’t a new law I required as existing laws were in place, and after learning how much my daughter had been failed previous to her death by the police and many other agencies, they had to fulfill their duties, and practices needed to change,” she explained.

“More than four dozen relatives have contacted me and only four of us have had a conviction,” she continued. “I was astonished to see such a large number who have been battling 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 impacted investigations that weren’t possibly going anywhere.”

Another Tragic Case

Saskia Lightburn Richie’s daughter Hannah 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 loving,” she said. “She was full of promise, and she was an exceptional, really loving mum to her two children, and she died by suicide after 24 months in a relationship where she was systematically destroyed by her companion,” she said.

“She was physically beaten, she was mentally tormented, she was dominated and dismantled gradually until she could not see a way forward. The individual who caused this walked free, because we call it self-inflicted death, we close the file and we proceed.

“Yet I was unable to continue,” she said, “and I haven’t been able to move on. Honestly, she did not merely take her own life. She was killed. Her death was gradual and deliberately over a 24-month span, and when I approached the authorities, when I pleaded with them to investigate what he had done to her, I was informed 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 fight for, took five years and changed nothing. A four day inquest found death by suicide, notwithstanding huge evidence over a extremely distressing four day period of domestic abuse and failings by multiple services.”

The parent informed the gathering that for a decade she has “struggled against a establishment that refuses to see what is obvious”.

She said the self-inflicted death is murder movement was vital “since when an individual dies by suicide after they’ve endured domestic abuse, we have to investigate it for what it truly represents, which is homicide.

“We need to apply the laws we currently have effectively 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 police to investigate properly. We need the prosecution authority to take legal action. We need the judiciary to understand that words and control can kill just as much as hands and weapons.”

Government Reaction

At a second meeting in the Parliament, led by a opposition politician, and attended by the government official, the grieving families again shared their experiences.

A parliamentary under-secretary informed the assembly: “Such fatalities are often dismissed as if they were their own choice, they chose to do this, when, in truth, these were the result of actually, somebody else’s violence, and these are not isolated stories.”

“Our law is broken, we are aware,” she stated. “Particularly around homicide or unlawful killing, it is fragmented. It’s not written in statute regardless, it has been shaped with traditional legal customs for centuries, and it is no longer fit for purpose, quite frankly, given the society we currently live in.

“I will not claim that it’s going to be simple to resolve. It is incredibly complex and difficult, especially when you look at the issue of homicide, but we acknowledge that it requires examination.”

Legal Authority Comment

A spokesperson for the prosecution service commented: “Family violence is a terrible offense and our legal officers are actively advised to consider homicide allegations in suicide cases where there is a known context of family violence or other manipulative conduct.

“We have previously charged a number of defendants for leading to the fatality of a partner they abused, including in proceedings which are currently active.

“We are also working with law enforcement and other stakeholders to guarantee these kinds of offences are clearly recognized – so that we can bring perpetrators to justice for the full extent of their crimes.”