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Every suicide in which the deceased had experienced abuse at home must be treated as a possible murder case, according to demands from advocates who aim to hold abusers accountable for the devastating consequences of their actions.

This step is necessary because law enforcement are failing to hold offenders to justice in cases of suicide following domestic abuse.

“Time and again, there is widespread breakdown, particularly within the criminal justice system, to scrutinise these deaths with the gravity they deserve,” remarked a co-director of a campaign group at a landmark meeting in Westminster recently.

The assembly, organized by a organization leading a “Self-Inflicted Death is Murder” initiative to advocate for reform in the legal framework, united families who had suffered bereavement to self-inflicted death after domestic abuse.

Individual Accounts of Loss

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 former partner to police, submitting a two-hour video interview as evidence about his conduct.

After her death, the perpetrator was convicted of manipulative and domineering conduct and imprisoned for 41 months. He was subsequently jailed for an additional term after a second woman came forward 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 bring perpetrators to justice; however she then realized that laws were already in place, they just were rarely applied to secure prosecutions.

“I decided it wasn’t a new law I needed as current statutes were already there, and after learning how much my child had been let down before her taking her life by the police and many other agencies, they needed to fulfill their duties, and things needed to change,” she explained.

“More than four dozen relatives have contacted me and only four of us have had a guilty verdict,” she added. “I was astonished to see so many families who have been fighting the authorities and CPS for years and receiving no resolution for their offspring or brother or sister and didn’t have a voice in case it affected inquiries that were not progressing.”

Further Heartbreaking Account

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

“Hannah was energetic, she was caring,” she stated. “She had great potential, and she was an exceptional, really loving mum to her kids, and she took her own life after 24 months in a relationship where she was systematically destroyed by her partner,” she explained.

“She endured physical assaults, she was psychologically tortured, she was dominated and dismantled piece by piece until she was unable to envision a path ahead. The man who caused this walked free, 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 haven’t been able to move on. Honestly, she didn’t just die by suicide. She was murdered. She was killed slowly and deliberately over a two year period, and when I went to the police, when I pleaded with them to look into what he had done to her, I was told that there was nothing that they were able to take.

“There was no investigation into her passing. The domestic homicide review, which I had to struggle to obtain, required five years and had no impact. A four day inquest found death by suicide, notwithstanding substantial proof over a extremely distressing four day period of family violence and shortcomings by multiple services.”

The parent told the meeting that for a decade she has “struggled against a system that ignores what is right in front of it”.

She said the self-inflicted death is murder movement was vital “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 murder.

“We must apply the laws we currently have properly and it is not occurring at the present, and we need to hold abusers accountable for pushing their targets to suicide.

“We have the laws. We require determination, we need law enforcement to conduct thorough inquiries. We need the Crown Prosecution Service to take legal action. We need judges to understand that words and control can cause death equally to hands and weapons.”

Government Reaction

At a second meeting in the Parliament, chaired by a opposition politician, and including the safeguarding minister, the grieving families again shared their experiences.

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 culmination of actually, another person’s abuse, and these aren’t isolated stories.”

“The legal system is flawed, we know that,” she stated. “Particularly around homicide or unlawful killing, it is fragmented. It lacks statutory basis regardless, it has been developed with traditional legal customs for centuries, and it is no longer fit for purpose, honestly, it’s the world we currently live in.

“I’m not going to pretend that it’s going to be simple to resolve. It is incredibly complex and difficult, especially when you consider the matter of murder, but we recognize that it requires examination.”

Prosecution Service Statement

A representative for the prosecution service commented: “Family violence is a heinous offense and our prosecutors are actively advised to evaluate murder and manslaughter charges in suicide cases where there is a established background of domestic abuse or other manipulative conduct.

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

“We are collaborating with police and other parties to guarantee these kinds of offences are clearly recognized – so that we can hold offenders accountable for the full extent of their crimes.”