🔗 Share this article

Each self-inflicted death in which the deceased had experienced abuse at home must be considered a possible murder case, according to calls from advocates who aim to make perpetrators responsible for the devastating consequences of their behavior.

This step is necessary because police and prosecutors are not doing enough to bring perpetrators to justice in cases of suicide after domestic abuse.

“Time and again, there is systemic and structural failure, particularly within the criminal justice system, to examine these deaths with the seriousness they warrant,” remarked a co-director of a campaign group at a landmark meeting in Westminster recently.

The meeting, organized by a group running a “Suicide is Homicide” initiative to fight for reform in the legal framework, united relatives who had suffered bereavement to self-inflicted death following family violence.

Personal Stories of Loss

Sharon Holland lost her daughter her 23-year-old daughter in March 2023. Prior to her passing, Chloe had informed her former partner to authorities, submitting a lengthy recorded statement as evidence about his conduct.

After her death, the perpetrator was convicted of manipulative and domineering conduct and jailed for over three years. He was subsequently sentenced for three years and seven months after a second woman stepped up to disclose that she had been in a harmful partnership with him.

In the wake of her loss, the parent decided to campaign for a legal change to hold offenders accountable; however she then realized that regulations were already in place, they just were rarely applied to secure prosecutions.

“I decided it was not a new law I required as existing laws were already there, and after finding out how much my daughter had been let down previous to her taking her life by the authorities and numerous services, they needed to do their job properly, and practices required reform,” she explained.

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

Further Heartbreaking Account

Saskia Lightburn Richie’s child Hannah died in May 2017, in what she described as “the final act of violence” in a campaign of abuse.

“She was energetic, she was loving,” she said. “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 partner,” she explained.

“She endured physical assaults, she was psychologically tortured, she was controlled and dismantled piece by piece until she could not see a path ahead. The man who caused this walked free, because we label it self-inflicted death, we conclude the case and we move on.

“Yet I was unable to continue,” she remarked, “and I have not managed to move on. Honestly, she didn’t just die by suicide. She was murdered. She was killed slowly and deliberately over a 24-month span, and when I went to the police, when I pleaded with them to look into 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 lengthy coroner’s hearing determined death by suicide, notwithstanding substantial proof over a very traumatic multi-day session of domestic abuse and failings by multiple services.”

The parent told the meeting that for eight years she has “struggled against a system that refuses to see what is obvious”.

She emphasized the self-inflicted death is murder movement was critical “because when someone takes their own life after they’ve suffered domestic abuse, we have to investigate it for what it really is, which is murder.

“We need to use the legislation we currently have effectively and it is not occurring at the moment, and we need to hold abusers accountable for pushing their targets to suicide.

“The statutes exist. We require determination, we need police to conduct thorough inquiries. We need the Crown Prosecution Service to prosecute. We need the judiciary to recognize that words and control can kill equally to physical force and arms.”

Political Response

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

A parliamentary under-secretary told the meeting: “Such fatalities are often written off as if they were their decision, they chose to do this, when, in truth, these were the culmination of in fact, somebody else’s violence, and these are not isolated stories.”

“Our law is broken, we are aware,” she stated. “Particularly around murder or manslaughter, it is fragmented. It lacks statutory basis regardless, it has been developed with common law practices for centuries, and it is outdated, quite frankly, it’s the world we currently live in.

“I will not claim that it’s going to be simple to fix. It is incredibly complex and difficult, particularly when you look at the matter of murder, but we recognize that it requires examination.”

Prosecution Service Statement

A spokesperson for the legal body said: “Domestic abuse is a heinous offense and our legal officers are regularly instructed to evaluate homicide allegations in self-inflicted death instances where there is a known context of family violence or other controlling or coercive behavior.

“We have previously charged a number of defendants for causing the death of a companion they abused, encompassing in proceedings which are ongoing.

“We are collaborating with police and other stakeholders to ensure these types of crimes are well-understood – so that we can bring perpetrators to justice for the full extent of their crimes.”