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Each self-inflicted death where the deceased had experienced abuse at home should be considered a potential murder case, as per calls from campaigners who seek to hold abusers responsible for the devastating impact of their behavior.

This move is necessary because police and prosecutors are failing to bring perpetrators accountable in instances of self-inflicted death after family violence.

“In case after case, there is systemic and structural failure, especially within the legal system, to examine these fatalities with the gravity they deserve,” stated a co-director of a advocacy organization during a significant gathering in London recently.

The assembly, organized by a group running a “Suicide is Homicide” initiative to advocate for reform in the criminal justice system, united families who had suffered bereavement to suicide following domestic abuse.

Individual Accounts of Tragedy

One mother experienced the death of her child her 23-year-old daughter in March 2023. Prior to her passing, Chloe had informed her former partner to police, providing a lengthy recorded statement as proof against him.

After her death, the perpetrator was found guilty of coercive and controlling behavior and imprisoned for 41 months. He was later sentenced for three years and seven months after a another victim stepped up to report 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 new law to bring perpetrators accountable; however she then discovered that regulations were already in place, they just weren’t often being used to achieve convictions.

“I decided it was not a new law I required as current statutes were in place, and after finding out how much my daughter had been failed previous to her death by the police and numerous services, they needed to do their job properly, and things needed to change,” she said.

“More than four dozen relatives have found me and only four of us have had a conviction,” she continued. “I was so shocked to see so many families who have been battling the police and prosecution service for years and getting no justice 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 called “the ultimate abusive action” in a prolonged pattern of mistreatment.

“She was vibrant, she was caring,” she stated. “She had great potential, and she was an exceptional, deeply devoted mother to her two children, and she took her own life after two years in a partnership where she was systematically destroyed by her companion,” she explained.

“She was physically beaten, she was mentally tormented, she was controlled and broken down gradually until she was unable to envision a way forward. The man who caused this walked free, because we call it suicide, we conclude the case and we proceed.

“But I could not move on,” she remarked, “and I haven’t been able to move on. In truth, she didn’t just die by suicide. She was murdered. Her death was gradual and intentionally over a 24-month span, and when I went to the police, 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.

“There was no investigation into her death. The domestic violence fatality analysis, which I had to struggle to obtain, took five years and changed nothing. A lengthy coroner’s hearing found death by suicide, notwithstanding substantial proof over a extremely distressing four day period of family violence and shortcomings by multiple services.”

The mother informed the gathering that for a decade she has “struggled against a establishment that refuses to see what is right in front of it”.

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

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

“We have the laws. We need the will, we need law enforcement to investigate properly. We need the prosecution authority to prosecute. We need judges to understand that words and control can cause death just as much as hands and weapons.”

Political Response

At a follow-up gathering in the Parliament, led by a Labour MP, and including the government official, the bereaved relatives again told their stories.

A junior minister told the meeting: “Such fatalities are often dismissed as if they were their decision, they opted for this, when, reality, these were the result of actually, another person’s abuse, and these are not isolated stories.”

“Our law is broken, we know that,” she stated. “Particularly around homicide or manslaughter, it is piecemeal. It lacks statutory basis anyway, it has been developed with common law practices for centuries, and it is no longer fit for purpose, quite frankly, given the society we currently live in.

“I’m not going to pretend that it’s going to be simple to resolve. It is incredibly complex and challenging, particularly when you consider the issue of murder, but we recognize that it needs to be looked at.”

Legal Authority Comment

A spokesperson for the prosecution service commented: “Domestic abuse is a terrible crime and our legal officers are actively advised to consider murder and manslaughter charges in self-inflicted death instances where there is a known context of domestic abuse or other controlling or coercive behavior.

“We have previously charged a several individuals for causing the death of a partner they mistreated, including in proceedings which are ongoing.

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