🔗 Share this article

Every suicide where the victim had endured abuse at home should be treated as a possible homicide, as per calls from campaigners who aim to make perpetrators accountable for the devastating impact of their behavior.

This move is necessary because police and prosecutors are failing to hold offenders accountable in cases of self-inflicted death following domestic abuse.

“Time and again, there is systemic and structural failure, particularly within the criminal justice system, to scrutinise these deaths with the seriousness they deserve,” remarked a co-director of a advocacy organization at a significant meeting in Westminster recently.

The meeting, organized by a group leading a “Suicide is Homicide” campaign to advocate for change in the criminal justice system, united families who had suffered bereavement to suicide after family violence.

Personal Stories of Loss

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

Following her passing, the individual was convicted of coercive and controlling behavior and imprisoned for over three years. He was subsequently jailed for three years and seven months after a another victim came forward to report 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 new law to bring perpetrators accountable; however she then discovered that laws were existing, they just were rarely applied to achieve convictions.

“I concluded it wasn’t a fresh legislation I required as current statutes were in place, and after finding out how much my daughter had been failed before her taking her life by the police and many other agencies, they had to fulfill their duties, and practices required reform,” she explained.

“Over 47 families have contacted me and just a handful of us have had a guilty verdict,” she added. “I was so shocked to see such a large number who have been battling the police and CPS for years and getting no justice for their child or sibling and could not speak out in case it impacted investigations that were not progressing.”

Further Heartbreaking Account

Saskia Lightburn Richie’s child Hannah died in spring 2017, in what she called “the ultimate abusive action” in a campaign of abuse.

“Hannah was vibrant, she was caring,” she stated. “She was full of promise, and she was an amazing, deeply devoted mother to her kids, and she took her own life after two years in a partnership where she was systematically destroyed by her partner,” she said.

“She endured physical assaults, she was psychologically tortured, she was dominated and broken down piece by piece until she was unable to envision a way forward. The individual who did this to her walked free, because we label it self-inflicted death, we conclude the case and we move on.

“But I could not move on,” she remarked, “and I have not managed to move on. In truth, Hannah didn’t just die by suicide. She was killed. She was killed slowly and intentionally over a 24-month span, and when I approached the authorities, when I pleaded with them to investigate what he had inflicted upon her, I was told that there was nothing that they were able to take.

“No inquiry was conducted into her death. The domestic homicide review, which I had to fight for, took five years and changed nothing. A four day inquest found death by suicide, notwithstanding huge evidence over a extremely distressing multi-day session of family violence and failings by multiple services.”

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

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

“We must apply the laws we currently have effectively and it really isn’t happening at the moment, and we need to make perpetrators responsible for pushing their targets to suicide.

“We have the laws. 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 words and control can cause death just as much as hands and weapons.”

Government Reaction

At a second meeting in the Parliament, led by a Labour MP, and attended by the safeguarding minister, the grieving families 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 chose to do this, when, reality, these were the result of actually, another person’s abuse, and these aren’t rare incidents.”

“Our law is broken, we are aware,” 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 generations, and it is outdated, honestly, given the society we currently live in.

“I’m not going to pretend that it’s going to be simple to resolve. It is incredibly complex and difficult, especially when you look at the issue of homicide, but we acknowledge that it requires examination.”

Legal Authority Comment

A spokesperson for the legal body 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 established background of family violence or other controlling or coercive behavior.

“We have in the past prosecuted a number of defendants for leading to the fatality of a companion they mistreated, encompassing in cases which are currently active.

“We are also working with police and other parties to guarantee these kinds of offences are well-understood – so that we can bring perpetrators to justice for the complete scope of their crimes.”