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Each self-inflicted death in which the victim had endured abuse at home must be considered a possible homicide, according to demands from campaigners who seek to make perpetrators accountable for the devastating consequences of their actions.

This step is necessary because law enforcement are failing to hold offenders accountable in cases of suicide following family violence.

“Time and again, there is systemic and structural failure, especially within the criminal justice system, to examine these deaths with the seriousness they deserve,” stated a leader of a advocacy organization during a landmark meeting in Westminster recently.

The assembly, arranged by a organization running a “Self-Inflicted Death is Murder” campaign to fight for reform in the criminal justice system, united relatives who had suffered bereavement to suicide following family violence.

Individual Accounts of Tragedy

Sharon Holland experienced the death of her child her 23-year-old daughter in spring 2023. Prior to her passing, the young woman had reported her former partner to police, submitting a lengthy recorded statement as evidence about his conduct.

After her death, the perpetrator was convicted of coercive and controlling behavior and jailed for over three years. He was later jailed for an additional term after a another victim stepped up to report that she had been in a violent and abusive relationship with him.

After Chloe’s death, the parent chose to advocate for a legal change to hold offenders to justice; however she then discovered that regulations were existing, they just weren’t often being used to achieve convictions.

“I concluded it was not a fresh legislation I needed as current statutes were in place, and after learning how much my daughter had been let down previous to her death by the police and numerous services, they had to fulfill their duties, and practices needed to change,” she explained.

“Over 47 families have contacted me and just a handful 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 a long time 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 spring 2017, in what she described as “the ultimate abusive action” in a campaign of abuse.

“Hannah was energetic, she was loving,” she said. “She had great potential, and she was an amazing, deeply devoted mother to her two children, and she died by suicide after 24 months in a relationship where she was methodically broken down by her partner,” she said.

“She was physically beaten, she was psychologically tortured, she was controlled and dismantled gradually until she could not see a path ahead. The man who did this to her walked free, because we call it self-inflicted death, we close the file and we proceed.

“But I could not move on,” she remarked, “and I haven’t been able to let go. In truth, she didn’t just die by suicide. She was killed. She was killed slowly and intentionally over a two year period, and when I approached the authorities, when I begged them to look into what he had done to her, I was told that there was no action that they could do.

“There was no investigation into her passing. The domestic violence fatality analysis, which I had to struggle to obtain, took five years and changed nothing. A four day inquest determined self-inflicted death, notwithstanding substantial proof over a extremely distressing four day period of family violence and failings by various agencies.”

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

She emphasized the self-inflicted death is murder movement was critical “since 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 apply the laws we currently have properly and it is not occurring at the moment, and we need to make perpetrators responsible for pushing their targets to suicide.

“We have the laws. We require determination, we need police to investigate properly. We need the Crown Prosecution Service to prosecute. We need the judiciary to understand that verbal abuse and manipulation can cause death equally to hands and weapons.”

Government Reaction

At a second meeting in the House of Commons, chaired by a Labour MP, and including the safeguarding minister, the grieving families again told their stories.

A junior minister informed the assembly: “Such fatalities are often dismissed as if they were their decision, they chose to do this, when, in truth, these were the result of in fact, somebody else’s violence, and these aren’t rare incidents.”

“The legal system is flawed, we know that,” she said. “Especially around murder or manslaughter, it is piecemeal. It’s not written in statute regardless, it has been developed with traditional legal customs for generations, and it is outdated, honestly, given the society we inhabit today.

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

Legal Authority Comment

A representative for the prosecution service said: “Family violence is a terrible crime and our prosecutors are regularly instructed to consider murder and manslaughter charges in self-inflicted death instances where there is a known context of family violence or other controlling or coercive behavior.

“We have in the past prosecuted a several individuals for leading to the fatality of a partner they abused, encompassing in cases which are ongoing.

“We are also working with law enforcement and other parties to ensure these kinds of offences are clearly recognized – so that we can bring perpetrators to justice for the full extent of their crimes.”