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Every suicide where the deceased had experienced domestic violence should be considered a possible murder case, as per calls from advocates who aim to hold abusers responsible for the catastrophic impact of their actions.

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

“Time and again, there is systemic and structural failure, especially within the legal system, to examine these fatalities with the gravity they warrant,” remarked a leader of a campaign group at a landmark meeting in London earlier this week.

The meeting, organized by a organization running a “Suicide is Homicide” initiative to advocate for reform in the legal framework, united relatives who had lost loved ones to self-inflicted death following family violence.

Personal Stories of Loss

Sharon Holland lost her daughter Chloe Holland in March 2023. Before her death, the young woman had informed her former partner to authorities, submitting a lengthy recorded statement as proof against him.

Following her passing, the perpetrator was found guilty of coercive and controlling behavior and jailed for over three years. He was later jailed for an additional term after a second woman came forward 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 to justice; however she then realized that laws were already in place, they just weren’t often being used to secure prosecutions.

“I concluded it was not a new law I needed as current statutes were in place, and after learning how much my child had been failed previous to her death by the police and numerous services, they needed to fulfill their duties, 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 astonished to see so many families who have been battling 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 investigations that weren’t possibly going anywhere.”

Another Tragic Case

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 was full of promise, and she was an amazing, really loving mother to her kids, and she died by suicide after two years in a partnership where she was methodically broken down by her partner,” she explained.

“She was physically beaten, she was psychologically tortured, she was dominated and broken down piece by piece until she could not see a path ahead. The man who did this to her went unpunished, because we call it suicide, we close the file and we proceed.

“Yet I was unable to continue,” she remarked, “and I haven’t been able to move on. In truth, Hannah did not merely take her own life. She was murdered. She was killed slowly and deliberately over a two year period, and when I went to the police, when I begged them to look into what he had inflicted upon her, I was informed that there was nothing that they could do.

“No inquiry was conducted into her passing. The domestic homicide review, which I had to struggle to obtain, took five years and had no impact. A lengthy coroner’s hearing determined self-inflicted death, notwithstanding huge evidence over a extremely distressing four day period of domestic abuse and failings by various agencies.”

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

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

“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 equally to hands and weapons.”

Political Response

At a follow-up gathering in the House of Commons, led by a Labour MP, and attended by the government official, the bereaved relatives again shared their experiences.

A parliamentary under-secretary informed the assembly: “Such fatalities are often written off as if they were their own choice, they opted for this, when, in truth, these were the culmination of actually, somebody else’s violence, and these are not isolated stories.”

“The legal system is flawed, we know that,” she said. “Especially around homicide or manslaughter, it is piecemeal. It lacks statutory basis regardless, it has been shaped with traditional legal customs 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 resolve. It is incredibly complex and challenging, particularly when you consider the matter of murder, but we acknowledge that it needs to be looked at.”

Legal Authority Comment

A spokesperson for the prosecution service said: “Family violence is a terrible offense and our legal officers are regularly instructed to consider homicide allegations in self-inflicted death instances where there is a established background of family violence or other controlling or coercive behavior.

“We have previously charged a number of defendants for leading to the fatality of a companion they mistreated, including in cases which are ongoing.

“We are also working with police and other stakeholders to guarantee these types of crimes are clearly recognized – so that we can hold offenders accountable for the complete scope of their crimes.”