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Every suicide in which the victim had experienced domestic violence must be treated as a potential murder case, according to calls from advocates who seek to make perpetrators accountable for the catastrophic consequences of their actions.

This move is necessary because police and prosecutors are failing to bring perpetrators accountable in instances of suicide following family violence.

“Time and again, there is widespread breakdown, especially within the criminal justice system, to scrutinise these deaths with the seriousness they deserve,” remarked a leader of a advocacy organization during a landmark gathering in London earlier this week.

The meeting, arranged by a group running a “Self-Inflicted Death is Murder” initiative to advocate for reform in the legal framework, brought together families who had lost loved ones to suicide following domestic abuse.

Individual Accounts of Tragedy

One mother experienced the death of her child Chloe Holland in spring 2023. Before her death, the young woman had reported her ex-boyfriend to police, providing a two-hour video interview as proof against him.

Following her passing, the individual was convicted of coercive and controlling behavior and imprisoned for over three years. He was subsequently jailed for three years and seven months after a second woman stepped up to disclose that she had been in a harmful partnership with him.

After Chloe’s death, the parent decided to campaign for a legal change to hold offenders accountable; however she then discovered that regulations were existing, they just were rarely applied to achieve convictions.

“I concluded it wasn’t a new law I required as current statutes were in place, and after learning how much my daughter had been failed before her taking her life by the police and numerous services, they had to do their job properly, and practices needed to change,” she explained.

“More than four dozen relatives have found me and only four of us have had a guilty verdict,” she continued. “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 sibling and could not speak out in case it impacted investigations that weren’t possibly going anywhere.”

Further Heartbreaking Account

Saskia Lightburn Richie’s daughter her 30-year-old daughter died in spring 2017, in what she called “the final act of violence” in a prolonged pattern of mistreatment.

“She was vibrant, she was loving,” she stated. “She had great potential, and she was an exceptional, really loving mum to her two children, and she took her own life after two years in a relationship where she was systematically destroyed by her companion,” she explained.

“She was physically beaten, she was mentally tormented, she was controlled and dismantled piece by piece until she could not see a path ahead. The individual who caused this went unpunished, because we call it self-inflicted death, we conclude the case and we move on.

“But I could not move on,” she said, “and I haven’t been able to move on. In truth, she didn’t just die by suicide. She was killed. Her death was gradual and intentionally over a 24-month span, and when I approached the authorities, when I begged them to investigate what he had inflicted upon her, I was informed that there was nothing that they were able to take.

“No inquiry was conducted into her death. The domestic violence fatality analysis, which I had to struggle to obtain, required five years and had no impact. A four day inquest found self-inflicted death, notwithstanding huge evidence over a extremely distressing multi-day session of domestic abuse and shortcomings by various agencies.”

The mother 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 suicide is homicide campaign was vital “since when someone dies by suicide after they’ve suffered family violence, we have to examine it for what it truly represents, which is murder.

“We need to use the legislation we currently have effectively and it really isn’t happening at the moment, and we need to hold abusers accountable for driving their victims to death.

“We have the laws. We need the will, we need law enforcement to conduct thorough inquiries. We need the Crown Prosecution Service to take legal action. We need judges to recognize that words and control can kill equally to hands and weapons.”

Government Reaction

At a second meeting in the House of Commons, chaired by a opposition politician, and attended by the government official, the bereaved relatives again shared their experiences.

A junior minister told the meeting: “These deaths are often written off as if they were their decision, they opted for this, when, in truth, these were the culmination of actually, somebody else’s violence, and these aren’t rare incidents.”

“Our law is broken, we are aware,” she said. “Especially around murder or unlawful killing, it is piecemeal. It lacks statutory basis anyway, 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, particularly when you look at the matter of homicide, but we recognize that it needs to be looked at.”

Prosecution Service Statement

A representative for the prosecution service said: “Domestic abuse is a heinous crime and our legal officers are actively advised to consider murder and manslaughter charges in suicide cases where there is a known context of domestic abuse or other controlling or coercive behavior.

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

“We are collaborating with law enforcement and other parties to ensure these types of crimes are well-understood – so that we can hold offenders to justice for the complete scope of their crimes.”