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Every suicide where the victim had endured domestic violence should be treated as a potential murder case, according to calls from campaigners who aim to hold abusers accountable for the catastrophic impact of their actions.

This move is necessary because police and prosecutors are not doing enough to hold offenders to justice in instances of suicide after domestic abuse.

“In case after case, there is systemic and structural failure, particularly within the legal system, to scrutinise these fatalities with the seriousness they warrant,” stated a leader of a campaign group during a landmark meeting in Westminster earlier this week.

The assembly, organized by a organization running a “Suicide is Homicide” initiative to fight for reform in the criminal justice system, united relatives who had suffered bereavement to self-inflicted death following family violence.

Individual Accounts of Loss

One mother experienced the death of her child Chloe Holland in spring 2023. Prior to her passing, Chloe had reported her former partner to police, submitting a lengthy recorded statement as proof about his conduct.

After her death, the individual was found guilty of coercive and controlling behavior and jailed for 41 months. He was later sentenced for an additional term after a second woman stepped up to disclose that she had been in a violent and abusive relationship with him.

In the wake of her loss, the mother decided to campaign for a legal change to hold offenders to justice; yet she then realized that laws were existing, they just were rarely applied to secure prosecutions.

“I decided it wasn’t a new law I required as current statutes were already there, and after finding out how much my child had been failed before her death by the police and many other agencies, they needed to do their job properly, and things required reform,” she said.

“More than four dozen relatives have contacted 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 authorities and CPS for years and getting no justice for their child or brother or sister and didn’t have a voice in case it affected investigations that weren’t possibly going anywhere.”

Further Heartbreaking Account

Saskia Lightburn Richie’s daughter her 30-year-old daughter passed away in May 2017, in what she described as “the final act of violence” in a prolonged pattern of mistreatment.

“She was vibrant, she was loving,” she said. “She was full of promise, and she was an amazing, deeply devoted mum to her kids, and she died by suicide after 24 months in a relationship where she was systematically destroyed by her partner,” she explained.

“She was physically beaten, she was mentally tormented, she was dominated and broken down piece by piece until she was unable to envision a way forward. The individual who caused this went unpunished, because we call it suicide, we conclude the case and we proceed.

“But I could not move on,” she said, “and I have not managed to let go. Honestly, she didn’t just die by suicide. She was murdered. She was killed slowly and intentionally over a 24-month span, and when I approached the authorities, when I begged them to look into what he had inflicted upon her, I was told that there was nothing that they were able to take.

“There was no investigation into her passing. The domestic homicide review, which I had to struggle to obtain, required five years and had no impact. A lengthy coroner’s hearing determined death by suicide, despite substantial proof over a very traumatic multi-day session of family violence and failings by multiple services.”

The parent told the meeting that for eight years she has “been fighting a establishment that refuses to see what is right in front of it”.

She said the suicide is homicide campaign was critical “because when someone dies by suicide after they’ve suffered family violence, we have to investigate it for what it truly represents, which is homicide.

“We need to use the legislation we already possess effectively and it really isn’t happening at the moment, and we need to hold abusers accountable for pushing their targets to suicide.

“The statutes exist. We need the will, we need law enforcement to investigate properly. We need the prosecution authority to prosecute. We need the judiciary to understand that verbal abuse and manipulation can cause death just as much as hands and weapons.”

Government Reaction

At a second meeting in the House of Commons, chaired by a Labour MP, and attended by the safeguarding minister, the bereaved relatives again told their stories.

A parliamentary under-secretary informed the assembly: “These deaths are often written off as if they were their decision, they opted for this, when, in truth, these were the culmination of in fact, another person’s abuse, and these aren’t isolated stories.”

“The legal system is flawed, we know that,” she stated. “Particularly around homicide or unlawful killing, it is piecemeal. It lacks statutory basis regardless, it has been developed with traditional legal customs for centuries, and it is outdated, honestly, given the society we inhabit today.

“I will not claim that it’s going to be simple to fix. It is extremely complicated and difficult, especially when you consider the matter of homicide, but we recognize that it needs to be looked at.”

Legal Authority Comment

A spokesperson for the legal body commented: “Domestic abuse is a terrible crime and our prosecutors are regularly instructed to evaluate 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 abused, encompassing in proceedings which are ongoing.

“We are collaborating with police and other parties to guarantee these types of crimes are well-understood – so that we can hold offenders accountable for the full extent of their wrongdoings.”