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Every suicide in which the victim had endured domestic violence must be considered a potential murder case, according to calls from campaigners who seek to hold abusers responsible for the catastrophic consequences of their actions.

This step is essential because law enforcement are failing to bring perpetrators to justice in cases of suicide after family violence.

“Time and again, there is systemic and structural failure, particularly within the legal system, to examine these fatalities with the seriousness they deserve,” stated a co-director of a campaign group during a landmark meeting in London recently.

The assembly, arranged by a group running a “Self-Inflicted Death is Murder” initiative to advocate for change in the legal framework, brought together relatives who had lost loved ones to self-inflicted death after domestic abuse.

Individual Accounts of Loss

One mother lost her daughter her 23-year-old daughter in spring 2023. Before her death, Chloe had informed her former partner to police, submitting a two-hour video interview as proof against him.

After her death, the individual was found guilty of coercive and controlling behavior and jailed for 41 months. He was subsequently jailed for an additional term after a another victim stepped up to disclose that she had been in a violent and abusive relationship with him.

In the wake of her loss, the parent chose to advocate for a legal change to bring perpetrators accountable; however she then realized that regulations were existing, they just weren’t often being used to secure prosecutions.

“I concluded it wasn’t a fresh legislation I needed as current statutes were in place, and after finding out how much my child had been let down previous to her death by the authorities and numerous services, they needed to fulfill their duties, and practices required reform,” she explained.

“More than four dozen relatives have contacted me and only four of us have had a guilty verdict,” she continued. “I was so shocked to see so many families who have been fighting the authorities and prosecution service for a long time and receiving no resolution for their offspring or sibling and could not speak out in case it impacted investigations that weren’t possibly going anywhere.”

Another Tragic Case

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

“Hannah was energetic, she was caring,” she said. “She was full of promise, 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 endured physical assaults, she was psychologically tortured, she was dominated and broken down gradually until she could not see a way forward. The man who did this to her went unpunished, because we call it self-inflicted death, we close the file and we move on.

“Yet I was unable to continue,” she remarked, “and I have not managed to let go. In truth, Hannah did not merely take her own life. She was killed. She was killed slowly and intentionally over a 24-month span, and when I went to the police, when I pleaded with them to investigate what he had done to her, I was informed that there was no action that they were able to take.

“There was no investigation into her death. The domestic violence fatality analysis, which I had to struggle to obtain, took five years and had no impact. A four day inquest determined self-inflicted death, despite huge evidence over a extremely distressing four day period of domestic abuse and shortcomings by multiple services.”

The mother informed the gathering that for eight years she has “struggled against a system that ignores what is right in front of it”.

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

“We need to use the legislation we already possess properly and it really isn’t happening at the moment, and we need to make perpetrators responsible for driving their victims to death.

“The statutes exist. We require determination, we need police to conduct thorough inquiries. 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 second meeting in the House of Commons, led by a opposition politician, and including the safeguarding minister, the grieving families again shared their experiences.

A parliamentary under-secretary told the meeting: “These deaths are often dismissed as if they were their decision, they chose to do this, when, in truth, these were the culmination of actually, another person’s abuse, and these are not rare incidents.”

“Our law is broken, we are aware,” she said. “Especially around murder or unlawful killing, it is fragmented. It’s not written in statute regardless, it has been shaped with common law practices for centuries, and it is no longer fit for purpose, honestly, given the society we currently live in.

“I’m not going to pretend that it’s going to be easy to resolve. It is incredibly complex and challenging, particularly when you look at the issue of homicide, but we acknowledge that it requires examination.”

Legal Authority Comment

A spokesperson for the legal body said: “Family violence is a heinous offense and our prosecutors are actively advised to consider homicide allegations in suicide cases where there is a known context of domestic abuse or other controlling or coercive behavior.

“We have in the past prosecuted a number of defendants for leading to the fatality of a partner they abused, encompassing in proceedings 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 hold offenders accountable for the complete scope of their crimes.”