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Each self-inflicted death where the victim had endured domestic violence should be considered a possible homicide, according to demands from campaigners who aim to hold abusers accountable for the catastrophic impact of their behavior.

This step is necessary because police and prosecutors are failing to hold offenders accountable in cases of suicide after family violence.

“Time and again, there is systemic and structural failure, particularly within the criminal justice system, to examine these deaths with the seriousness they warrant,” stated a co-director of a advocacy organization at a landmark meeting in London earlier this week.

The meeting, organized by a organization running a “Self-Inflicted Death is Murder” initiative to advocate for reform in the legal framework, united families who had lost loved ones to self-inflicted death following family violence.

Individual Accounts of Loss

One mother lost her daughter Chloe Holland in March 2023. Before her death, Chloe had reported her former partner to police, submitting a lengthy recorded statement as proof against him.

After her death, the individual was found guilty of coercive and controlling behavior and jailed for 41 months. He was later sentenced for three years and seven months 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 mother chose to advocate for a new law to hold offenders to justice; yet she then discovered that laws were already in place, they just weren’t often being used to secure prosecutions.

“I decided it wasn’t a fresh legislation I required as current statutes were in place, and after finding out how much my child had been let down before her death by the police and many other agencies, they needed to do their job properly, and things needed to change,” she said.

“More than four dozen relatives have found me and just a handful of us have had a conviction,” she continued. “I was astonished to see so many families who have been fighting the police and prosecution service for a long time and receiving no resolution for their offspring or sibling and didn’t have a voice in case it affected investigations that weren’t possibly going anywhere.”

Another Tragic Case

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

“She was vibrant, she was caring,” she stated. “She was full of promise, and she was an exceptional, 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 endured physical assaults, she was mentally tormented, she was controlled and dismantled gradually until she was unable to envision a path ahead. The individual who did this to her went unpunished, because we label it suicide, we conclude the case and we proceed.

“Yet I was unable to continue,” she remarked, “and I have not managed to move on. Honestly, she did not merely take her own life. She was murdered. Her death was gradual and intentionally 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.

“There was no investigation into her passing. The domestic homicide review, which I had to fight for, took five years and had no impact. A lengthy coroner’s hearing found death by suicide, despite substantial proof over a very traumatic four day period of family violence and failings by various agencies.”

The parent told the meeting that for a decade she has “been fighting a establishment that ignores what is obvious”.

She emphasized the self-inflicted death is murder movement was vital “because when someone dies by suicide after they’ve suffered domestic abuse, 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 really isn’t happening at the present, and we need to hold abusers accountable for driving their victims to death.

“The statutes exist. We need the will, we need police to conduct thorough inquiries. We need the prosecution authority to prosecute. We need judges to understand that verbal abuse and manipulation can kill equally to hands and weapons.”

Government Reaction

At a follow-up gathering in the House of Commons, chaired by a Labour MP, and attended by the government official, the bereaved relatives again told their stories.

A junior minister informed the assembly: “Such fatalities are often written off as if they were their decision, they opted for this, when, reality, these were the culmination of in fact, another person’s abuse, and these are not rare incidents.”

“Our law is broken, we are aware,” she stated. “Particularly around homicide or unlawful killing, it is fragmented. It’s not written in statute anyway, it has been developed with traditional legal customs for centuries, and it is outdated, quite frankly, it’s the world we inhabit today.

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

Legal Authority Comment

A spokesperson for the legal body said: “Family violence is a terrible offense and our legal officers are actively advised to evaluate murder and manslaughter charges in suicide cases where there is a known context of family violence or other controlling or coercive behavior.

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

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