🔗 Share this article

Every suicide in which the victim had experienced domestic violence should be treated as a possible murder case, as per calls from advocates who seek to make perpetrators responsible for the devastating consequences of their actions.

This move is essential because police and prosecutors are failing to hold offenders to justice in instances of suicide after family violence.

“Time and again, there is widespread breakdown, particularly within the criminal justice system, to examine these fatalities with the gravity they warrant,” stated a co-director of a advocacy organization at a significant meeting in London earlier this week.

The assembly, organized by a group leading a “Self-Inflicted Death is Murder” campaign to fight for change in the criminal justice system, brought together families who had suffered bereavement to suicide after family violence.

Individual Accounts of Loss

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

Following her passing, the perpetrator was found guilty of manipulative and domineering conduct and imprisoned for 41 months. He was later sentenced for an additional term after a second woman stepped up to report that she had been in a violent and abusive relationship with him.

After Chloe’s death, the mother decided to campaign for a legal change to hold offenders to justice; however she then discovered that laws were existing, they just weren’t often being used to secure prosecutions.

“I decided it wasn’t a fresh legislation I needed as current statutes were already there, and after finding out how much my daughter had been let down before her death by the police and many other agencies, they had to fulfill their duties, and things required reform,” she said.

“Over 47 families have contacted me and just a handful of us have had a conviction,” she added. “I was so shocked to see such a large number who have been battling the police and prosecution service 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 were not progressing.”

Another Tragic Case

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

“Hannah 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 took her own life after 24 months in a relationship where she was systematically destroyed by her companion,” she said.

“She endured physical assaults, she was psychologically tortured, she was controlled and dismantled piece by piece until she could not see a way forward. The individual who caused this went unpunished, because we call it self-inflicted death, we conclude the case and we move on.

“Yet I was unable to continue,” she said, “and I haven’t been able to let go. In truth, Hannah didn’t just die by suicide. She was murdered. Her death was gradual and deliberately over a two year period, and when I went to the police, when I pleaded with them to look into what he had inflicted upon her, I was told that there was nothing that they could do.

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

The parent told the meeting that for eight years she has “been fighting a system that refuses to see what is obvious”.

She said the self-inflicted death is murder campaign was critical “since when an individual takes their own life after they’ve endured domestic abuse, we have to investigate it for what it really is, which is homicide.

“We need to apply the laws we currently have properly and it really isn’t happening at the moment, and we need to hold abusers accountable for pushing their targets to suicide.

“We have the laws. We need the will, we need police to investigate properly. We need the prosecution authority to take legal action. We need the judiciary to understand that words and control can kill equally to hands and weapons.”

Political Response

At a follow-up gathering in the Parliament, chaired by a Labour MP, and including the safeguarding minister, the grieving families again told their stories.

A junior minister informed the assembly: “These deaths are often dismissed as if they were their own choice, they opted for this, when, reality, these were the culmination of in fact, another person’s abuse, and these aren’t rare incidents.”

“The legal system is flawed, we are aware,” she said. “Especially around homicide or manslaughter, it is fragmented. It’s not written in statute regardless, it has been shaped with common law practices for generations, and it is no longer fit for purpose, honestly, it’s the world we currently live in.

“I will not claim that it’s going to be easy to fix. It is extremely complicated and difficult, particularly when you look at the matter of homicide, but we acknowledge that it requires examination.”

Legal Authority Comment

A spokesperson for the legal body commented: “Domestic abuse is a terrible crime and our legal officers are regularly instructed to consider murder and manslaughter charges in self-inflicted death instances where there is a established background of domestic abuse or other manipulative conduct.

“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 law enforcement and other parties to guarantee these types of crimes are clearly recognized – so that we can bring perpetrators accountable for the full extent of their wrongdoings.”