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Every suicide in which the deceased had endured abuse at home must be considered a potential homicide, as per demands from campaigners who aim to hold abusers responsible for the devastating consequences of their behavior.

This move is necessary because law enforcement are failing to bring perpetrators accountable in cases of self-inflicted death after family violence.

“In case after case, there is systemic and structural failure, particularly within the criminal justice system, to examine these deaths with the seriousness they warrant,” stated a leader of a campaign group during a significant gathering in London recently.

The assembly, arranged by a group running a “Suicide is Homicide” campaign 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

Sharon Holland experienced the death of her child Chloe Holland in spring 2023. Prior to her passing, the young woman had reported her former partner to authorities, providing a lengthy recorded statement as proof about his conduct.

After her death, the individual was found guilty of coercive and controlling behavior and jailed for over three years. He was later jailed for three years and seven months after a another victim stepped up to disclose that she had been in a harmful partnership with him.

After Chloe’s death, the mother chose to advocate for a legal change to bring perpetrators to justice; however she then discovered 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 previous to her death by the police and many other agencies, they had to fulfill their duties, and practices required reform,” she explained.

“Over 47 families have found me and just a handful of us have had a conviction,” she added. “I was astonished 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 sibling and didn’t have a voice in case it impacted investigations that were not progressing.”

Another Tragic Case

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

“Hannah was energetic, she was caring,” she stated. “She was full of promise, and she was an exceptional, really loving mother to her kids, and she died by suicide after 24 months in a partnership where she was methodically broken down by her partner,” she said.

“She was physically beaten, she was psychologically tortured, she was controlled and dismantled gradually until she was unable to envision a path ahead. The man who did this to her went unpunished, because we label it self-inflicted death, we close the file and we move on.

“Yet I was unable to continue,” she said, “and I have not managed to move on. Honestly, Hannah did not merely take her own life. She was murdered. She was killed slowly and deliberately over a two year period, and when I went to the police, when I begged them to look into 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 homicide review, which I had to struggle to obtain, required five years and changed nothing. A lengthy coroner’s hearing determined death by suicide, despite huge evidence over a very traumatic multi-day session of family violence and failings by various agencies.”

The parent informed the gathering that for a decade she has “been fighting a system that ignores what is right in front of it”.

She said the self-inflicted death is murder campaign was vital “since when someone dies by suicide after they’ve endured family violence, we have to examine it for what it really is, which is homicide.

“We must use the legislation we currently have effectively and it really isn’t happening 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 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 physical force and arms.”

Government Reaction

At a follow-up gathering in the Parliament, chaired by a opposition politician, and attended by the safeguarding minister, the bereaved relatives again shared their experiences.

A junior minister told the meeting: “These deaths are often dismissed 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 aren’t isolated stories.”

“The legal system is flawed, we are aware,” she said. “Particularly around homicide or manslaughter, it is fragmented. It lacks statutory basis regardless, it has been shaped with traditional legal customs for centuries, and it is outdated, quite frankly, it’s the world we inhabit today.

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

Legal Authority Comment

A representative for the legal body said: “Family violence is a terrible crime and our legal officers are regularly instructed to consider homicide allegations in self-inflicted death instances where there is a established background of family violence or other manipulative conduct.

“We have previously charged a several individuals for leading to the fatality of a partner they abused, encompassing in proceedings which are ongoing.

“We are also working with police and other parties to guarantee these kinds of offences are well-understood – so that we can hold offenders to justice for the full extent of their wrongdoings.”