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Every suicide where the deceased had endured abuse at home must be considered a potential homicide, according to demands from campaigners who aim to make perpetrators accountable for the devastating impact of their behavior.

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

“Time and again, there is widespread breakdown, particularly within the criminal justice system, to examine these fatalities with the seriousness they deserve,” remarked a leader of a campaign group during a significant gathering in Westminster earlier this week.

The assembly, organized by a organization leading a “Self-Inflicted Death is Murder” initiative to fight for reform in the legal framework, united relatives who had suffered bereavement to suicide following domestic abuse.

Personal Stories of Tragedy

Sharon Holland experienced the death of her child Chloe Holland in March 2023. Before her death, Chloe had informed her ex-boyfriend to authorities, providing a two-hour video interview as evidence about his conduct.

Following her passing, the perpetrator was convicted of manipulative and domineering conduct and imprisoned for over three years. He was subsequently sentenced for three years and seven months after a another victim stepped up to disclose that she had been in a harmful partnership with him.

After Chloe’s death, the mother chose to advocate for a legal change to hold offenders to justice; yet she then realized that laws were existing, they just were rarely applied to achieve convictions.

“I decided it wasn’t a fresh legislation I needed as current statutes were in place, and after finding out how much my daughter had been let down previous to her death by the authorities and many other agencies, they needed to do their job properly, and things required reform,” she explained.

“Over 47 families 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 a long time and receiving no resolution for their child or brother or sister and could not speak out in case it impacted inquiries that weren’t possibly going anywhere.”

Further Heartbreaking Account

Saskia Lightburn Richie’s daughter Hannah passed away in May 2017, in what she called “the ultimate abusive action” in a prolonged pattern of mistreatment.

“She was vibrant, she was caring,” she said. “She had great potential, and she was an exceptional, really loving mother to her two children, and she died by suicide after 24 months 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 piece by piece until she was unable to envision a path ahead. The man who caused this went unpunished, because we call it suicide, we close the file and we proceed.

“Yet I was unable to continue,” she said, “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 two year period, and when I approached the authorities, when I begged them to investigate what he had done to her, I was informed that there was nothing that they could do.

“There was no investigation into her death. The domestic homicide review, which I had to struggle to obtain, took five years and had no impact. A four day inquest determined death by suicide, despite huge evidence over a extremely distressing four day period of domestic abuse and shortcomings by multiple services.”

The parent informed the gathering that for eight years she has “struggled against a system that refuses to see what is right in front of it”.

She said the self-inflicted death is murder movement was critical “since when an individual dies by suicide after they’ve suffered domestic abuse, we have to investigate it for what it really is, which is murder.

“We must apply the laws we currently have properly and it is not occurring at the present, and we need to make perpetrators responsible for driving their victims to death.

“We have the laws. We need the will, we need police to conduct thorough inquiries. We need the prosecution authority to take legal action. We need judges to recognize that verbal abuse and manipulation can kill just as much as hands and weapons.”

Political Response

At a second meeting in the House of Commons, chaired by a opposition politician, and including the safeguarding minister, the grieving families again shared their experiences.

A parliamentary under-secretary told the meeting: “These deaths are often dismissed as if they were their own choice, they opted for this, when, reality, these were the culmination of actually, 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’s not written in statute anyway, it has been shaped 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 easy to resolve. It is extremely complicated and challenging, particularly when you consider the issue of murder, but we recognize that it needs to be looked at.”

Prosecution Service Statement

A representative for the legal body said: “Domestic abuse 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 established background of family violence or other manipulative conduct.

“We have in the past prosecuted a several individuals for leading to the fatality of a companion they abused, including in proceedings which are currently active.

“We are collaborating with law enforcement and other stakeholders to guarantee these types of crimes are clearly recognized – so that we can bring perpetrators to justice for the complete scope of their wrongdoings.”