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Every suicide where the deceased had experienced abuse at home should be treated as a possible homicide, according to demands from advocates who aim to hold abusers responsible for the devastating impact of their behavior.

This step is essential because law enforcement are failing to hold offenders accountable in cases of self-inflicted death after domestic abuse.

“Time and again, there is systemic and structural failure, especially within the criminal justice system, to examine these fatalities with the seriousness they deserve,” remarked a leader of a advocacy organization during a significant meeting in London recently.

The meeting, arranged by a organization leading a “Self-Inflicted Death is Murder” initiative to fight for reform in the legal framework, brought together families who had suffered bereavement to self-inflicted death after family violence.

Individual Accounts of Loss

One mother lost her daughter Chloe Holland in spring 2023. Prior to her passing, Chloe had informed her former partner to authorities, submitting a lengthy recorded statement as proof against him.

Following her passing, the perpetrator was found guilty of coercive and controlling behavior and jailed for over three years. He was later sentenced for three years and seven months after a second woman came forward to report that she had been in a violent and abusive relationship with him.

After Chloe’s death, the mother chose to advocate for a new law to bring perpetrators accountable; however she then realized that regulations were already in place, they just were rarely applied to secure prosecutions.

“I concluded it wasn’t a fresh legislation I needed as current statutes were already there, and after finding out how much my child had been let down previous to her death by the authorities and many other agencies, they had to fulfill their duties, and things needed to change,” she said.

“Over 47 families have contacted me and just a handful of us have had a guilty verdict,” she added. “I was so shocked to see so many families who have been battling the authorities and CPS for a long time and receiving no resolution for their offspring or brother or sister and could not speak out in case it affected inquiries that were not progressing.”

Another Tragic Case

Saskia Lightburn Richie’s child her 30-year-old daughter passed away in May 2017, in what she called “the final act of violence” in a prolonged pattern of mistreatment.

“Hannah was energetic, she was loving,” she stated. “She was full of promise, and she was an amazing, deeply devoted 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 was physically beaten, she was psychologically tortured, she was dominated and broken down piece by piece until she could not see a way forward. The individual who did this to her went unpunished, because we call it self-inflicted death, we conclude the case and we proceed.

“Yet I was unable to continue,” she remarked, “and I haven’t been able to let go. Honestly, she did not merely take her own life. She was killed. She was killed slowly and deliberately over a 24-month span, 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 struggle to obtain, required five years and had no impact. A lengthy coroner’s hearing determined death by suicide, notwithstanding huge evidence over a extremely distressing four day period of domestic abuse and failings by various agencies.”

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

She emphasized the suicide is homicide movement was critical “because when someone takes their own life after they’ve suffered family violence, we have to examine it for what it really is, which is homicide.

“We need to use the legislation we already possess effectively and it is not occurring at the present, and we need to hold abusers accountable for pushing their targets to suicide.

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

Political Response

At a follow-up gathering 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: “These deaths are often dismissed as if they were their own choice, they chose to do this, when, reality, these were the result of actually, somebody else’s violence, and these are not rare incidents.”

“Our law is broken, we are aware,” she said. “Particularly around murder or manslaughter, it is fragmented. It’s not written in statute regardless, it has been developed with traditional legal customs for centuries, and it is outdated, honestly, given the society we inhabit today.

“I will not claim that it’s going to be easy to fix. It is extremely complicated and challenging, especially when you look at the issue of homicide, but we recognize that it needs to be looked at.”

Prosecution Service Statement

A spokesperson for the prosecution service commented: “Family violence is a heinous offense and our prosecutors are actively advised to evaluate murder and manslaughter charges in self-inflicted death instances where there is a known context of domestic abuse or other manipulative conduct.

“We have in the past prosecuted a several individuals for leading to the fatality of a companion they mistreated, including in cases which are currently active.

“We are collaborating with law enforcement and other parties to ensure these types of crimes are well-understood – so that we can bring perpetrators accountable for the full extent of their crimes.”