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Every suicide in which the victim had experienced domestic violence should be treated as a potential murder case, as per demands from campaigners who aim to hold abusers responsible for the catastrophic consequences of their behavior.

This move is necessary because law enforcement are not doing enough to bring perpetrators accountable in instances of suicide following family violence.

“Time and again, there is systemic and structural failure, particularly within the criminal justice system, to scrutinise these fatalities with the gravity they warrant,” remarked a co-director of a advocacy organization at a significant gathering in Westminster earlier this week.

The assembly, organized by a organization leading a “Suicide is Homicide” initiative to advocate for change in the legal framework, united families who had lost loved ones to self-inflicted death following domestic abuse.

Individual Accounts of Loss

One mother lost her daughter Chloe Holland 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.

After her death, the perpetrator was convicted of coercive and controlling behavior and imprisoned for 41 months. He was later sentenced for an additional term after a second woman came forward to report that she had been in a violent and abusive relationship with him.

In the wake of her loss, the mother chose to advocate for a legal change to hold offenders to justice; yet she then realized that laws were existing, they just were rarely applied to secure prosecutions.

“I concluded it was not a fresh legislation I required as current statutes were already there, and after learning how much my child had been failed before her death by the authorities and many other agencies, they needed to fulfill their duties, and practices required reform,” she explained.

“More than four dozen relatives have contacted me and just a handful of us have had a conviction,” she added. “I was so shocked to see so many families who have been fighting 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 affected investigations that were not progressing.”

Another Tragic Case

Saskia Lightburn Richie’s child her 30-year-old daughter died in May 2017, in what she described as “the final act of violence” in a campaign of abuse.

“She was energetic, she was caring,” she stated. “She was full of promise, and she was an amazing, really loving mother to her kids, and she took her own life after two years in a partnership where she was systematically destroyed by her partner,” she said.

“She was physically beaten, she was psychologically tortured, she was dominated and broken down gradually until she could not see a way forward. The man who caused this walked free, because we label it suicide, we close the file and we proceed.

“Yet I was unable to continue,” she said, “and I have not managed to move on. 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 approached the authorities, when I begged them to investigate what he had done to her, I was told that there was no action that they were able to take.

“There was no investigation into her passing. The domestic homicide review, which I had to struggle to obtain, took five years and had no impact. A lengthy coroner’s hearing determined self-inflicted death, despite huge evidence over a extremely distressing four day period of domestic abuse and shortcomings by multiple services.”

The parent told the meeting that for eight years she has “struggled against a establishment that ignores what is obvious”.

She emphasized the self-inflicted death is murder movement was critical “because when an individual takes their own life after they’ve endured family violence, we have to examine it for what it really is, which is homicide.

“We need to use the legislation we currently have effectively and it is not occurring at the present, and we need to make perpetrators responsible for driving their victims to death.

“The statutes exist. We require determination, we need police to investigate properly. We need the Crown Prosecution Service to take legal action. We need judges to understand that words and control can kill just as much as hands and weapons.”

Political Response

At a follow-up gathering in the Parliament, chaired by a Labour MP, and including the safeguarding minister, the bereaved relatives again told their stories.

A junior minister informed the assembly: “Such fatalities are often dismissed as if they were their own choice, they chose to do this, when, reality, these were the result of actually, another person’s abuse, and these are not isolated stories.”

“Our law is broken, we are aware,” she stated. “Particularly around murder or unlawful killing, it is piecemeal. It’s not written in statute regardless, it has been developed with common law practices for centuries, and it is no longer fit for purpose, honestly, it’s the world we currently live in.

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

Legal Authority Comment

A spokesperson for the prosecution service said: “Domestic abuse is a terrible crime and our prosecutors are regularly instructed to evaluate homicide allegations in suicide cases where there is a established background of domestic abuse or other controlling or coercive behavior.

“We have previously charged a several individuals for causing the death of a companion they abused, encompassing in proceedings which are currently active.

“We are also working with police and other parties to guarantee these kinds of offences are well-understood – so that we can bring perpetrators accountable for the complete scope of their wrongdoings.”