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Every suicide in which the victim had experienced domestic violence must be considered a possible homicide, as per demands from campaigners who aim to make perpetrators accountable for the devastating impact of their actions.

This move is essential because police and prosecutors are not doing enough to bring perpetrators accountable in instances of self-inflicted death after domestic abuse.

“In case after case, there is systemic and structural failure, especially within the legal system, to examine these deaths with the gravity they deserve,” remarked a co-director of a advocacy organization during a significant gathering in Westminster recently.

The meeting, arranged by a organization leading a “Suicide is Homicide” campaign to advocate for reform in the criminal justice system, brought together relatives who had suffered bereavement to suicide following domestic abuse.

Individual Accounts of Tragedy

Sharon Holland lost her daughter Chloe Holland in March 2023. Prior to her passing, Chloe had reported her ex-boyfriend to police, providing a lengthy recorded statement as evidence against him.

Following her passing, the individual was found guilty of manipulative and domineering conduct and jailed for over three years. He was subsequently sentenced for three years and seven months after a another victim stepped up to report that she had been in a violent and abusive relationship with him.

In the wake of her loss, the parent decided to campaign for a new law to hold offenders to justice; yet she then realized that laws were existing, they just weren’t often being used to secure prosecutions.

“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 death by the authorities and many other agencies, they needed to do their job properly, and things required reform,” she said.

“More than four dozen relatives have contacted me and only four of us have had a guilty verdict,” she added. “I was astonished to see such a large number who have been fighting the police and CPS for years and getting no justice 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 May 2017, in what she called “the ultimate abusive action” in a prolonged pattern of mistreatment.

“She was energetic, she was loving,” she said. “She was full of promise, and she was an amazing, deeply devoted mother to her two children, and she died by suicide after two years in a relationship where she was methodically broken down by her companion,” she explained.

“She endured physical assaults, she was mentally tormented, she was controlled and dismantled piece by piece until she could not see a way forward. The man who did this to her walked free, because we label it suicide, we close the file and we proceed.

“Yet I was unable to continue,” she remarked, “and I haven’t been able to let go. In truth, she didn’t just die by suicide. She was murdered. Her death was gradual and deliberately over a 24-month span, and when I approached the authorities, when I pleaded with them to look into what he had done to her, I was told that there was nothing that they could do.

“No inquiry was conducted into her death. The domestic homicide review, which I had to struggle to obtain, required five years and changed nothing. A lengthy coroner’s hearing found self-inflicted death, notwithstanding huge evidence over a extremely distressing multi-day session of family violence and failings by multiple services.”

The parent told the meeting that for a decade she has “been fighting a system that refuses to see what is right in front of it”.

She emphasized the suicide is homicide movement was critical “because when an individual takes their own life after they’ve endured domestic abuse, we have to investigate it for what it really is, which is homicide.

“We need to use the legislation we already possess properly 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 conduct thorough inquiries. We need the Crown Prosecution Service to prosecute. We need judges to recognize that words and control can cause death just as much as hands and weapons.”

Political Response

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

A junior minister told the meeting: “Such fatalities are often dismissed as if they were their own choice, they opted for this, when, in truth, these were the culmination of actually, somebody else’s violence, and these are not rare incidents.”

“The legal system is flawed, we know that,” she stated. “Particularly around homicide or manslaughter, it is fragmented. It lacks statutory basis regardless, it has been shaped with common law practices for generations, and it is outdated, honestly, it’s the world we inhabit today.

“I’m not going to pretend that it’s going to be easy to fix. It is extremely complicated and challenging, 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 commented: “Family violence is a terrible 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 previously charged a number of defendants for leading to the fatality of a partner they abused, including in cases which are ongoing.

“We are also working with law enforcement and other parties to guarantee these types of crimes are clearly recognized – so that we can bring perpetrators accountable for the complete scope of their crimes.”