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Every suicide in which the deceased had experienced abuse at home should be treated as a possible murder case, according to calls from campaigners who seek to hold abusers accountable for the catastrophic impact of their behavior.

This move is essential because law enforcement are failing to hold offenders accountable in cases of suicide following domestic abuse.

“In case after case, there is widespread breakdown, especially within the criminal justice system, to scrutinise these fatalities with the gravity they deserve,” remarked a co-director of a advocacy organization during a landmark meeting in Westminster earlier this week.

The assembly, organized by a organization leading a “Suicide is Homicide” initiative to fight for change in the legal framework, united relatives who had lost loved ones to suicide after family violence.

Personal Stories of Tragedy

Sharon Holland experienced the death of her child her 23-year-old daughter in March 2023. Before her death, the young woman had reported her ex-boyfriend to police, providing a lengthy recorded statement as proof against him.

Following her passing, the individual was found guilty of manipulative and domineering conduct and jailed for over three years. He was later sentenced for an additional term after a another victim came forward to disclose that she had been in a harmful partnership with him.

After Chloe’s death, the parent decided to campaign for a new law to bring perpetrators accountable; however she then discovered that laws were already in place, they just were rarely applied to achieve convictions.

“I concluded it wasn’t a new law I required as current statutes were already there, and after finding out how much my daughter had been failed before her taking her life by the authorities and numerous services, they needed to fulfill their duties, and things required reform,” she explained.

“Over 47 families have contacted me and just a handful of us have had a guilty verdict,” she continued. “I was so shocked to see so many families who have been fighting the police and prosecution service for a long time and getting no justice for their offspring or brother or sister and could not speak out in case it affected inquiries that were not progressing.”

Further Heartbreaking Account

Saskia Lightburn Richie’s daughter her 30-year-old daughter passed away in spring 2017, in what she described as “the ultimate abusive action” in a prolonged pattern of mistreatment.

“Hannah was vibrant, she was caring,” she stated. “She had great potential, and she was an amazing, really loving mum to her two children, and she took her own life after two years in a partnership where she was methodically broken down by her partner,” she explained.

“She was physically beaten, she was mentally tormented, she was dominated and broken down piece by piece until she was unable to envision a way forward. The individual who did this to her walked free, because we label it suicide, we close the file and we move on.

“But I could not move on,” she remarked, “and I haven’t been able to move on. In truth, Hannah didn’t just die by suicide. She was killed. Her death was gradual and deliberately over a two year period, and when I went to the police, when I begged them to investigate what he had done to her, I was informed that there was nothing that they could do.

“No inquiry was conducted into her passing. The domestic violence fatality analysis, which I had to struggle to obtain, required five years and changed nothing. A lengthy coroner’s hearing determined death by suicide, notwithstanding huge evidence over a very traumatic four day period of family violence and shortcomings by multiple services.”

The mother informed the gathering that for a decade she has “been fighting a system that refuses to see what is obvious”.

She emphasized the self-inflicted death is murder movement was critical “since when someone takes their own life after they’ve endured domestic abuse, we have to examine it for what it truly represents, which is homicide.

“We need to apply the laws we already possess effectively 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 law enforcement to conduct thorough inquiries. We need the prosecution authority to prosecute. We need the judiciary to understand that words and control can cause death equally to hands and weapons.”

Government Reaction

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

A junior minister told the meeting: “Such fatalities are often written off as if they were their decision, they chose to do this, when, reality, these were the result of actually, another person’s abuse, and these aren’t isolated stories.”

“The legal system is flawed, we know that,” she said. “Particularly 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, it’s the world we inhabit today.

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

Legal Authority Comment

A spokesperson for the prosecution service said: “Family violence is a heinous offense and our legal officers are regularly instructed to consider murder and manslaughter charges 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 causing the death of a partner they mistreated, including in cases which are currently active.

“We are also working with police and other stakeholders to guarantee these kinds of offences are well-understood – so that we can hold offenders to justice for the complete scope of their crimes.”