🔗 Share this article

Every suicide in which the deceased had experienced domestic violence must be considered a possible homicide, according to calls from advocates who seek to make perpetrators accountable for the catastrophic consequences of their actions.

This step is essential because law enforcement are not doing enough to bring perpetrators to justice in instances of self-inflicted death after family violence.

“In case after case, there is systemic and structural failure, particularly within the legal system, to examine these fatalities with the gravity they deserve,” remarked a co-director of a campaign group during a landmark gathering in Westminster earlier this week.

The meeting, organized by a organization running a “Suicide is Homicide” campaign to fight for reform in the legal framework, brought together families who had lost loved ones 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 ex-boyfriend to authorities, submitting a lengthy recorded statement as evidence against him.

Following her passing, the perpetrator was convicted of coercive and controlling behavior and jailed for over three years. He was later jailed 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 parent chose to advocate for a legal change to hold offenders to justice; however she then realized that laws were already in place, they just were rarely applied to secure prosecutions.

“I decided it was not a fresh legislation I required as existing laws were in place, and after finding out how much my daughter had been failed before her death by the authorities and numerous services, they needed to do their job properly, and things required reform,” she said.

“More than four dozen relatives have found me and only four of us have had a conviction,” she added. “I was astonished to see so many families who have been battling the authorities and prosecution service for a long time and receiving no resolution for their offspring or sibling and didn’t have a voice in case it impacted investigations that were not progressing.”

Another Tragic Case

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

“Hannah was vibrant, she was loving,” she said. “She had great potential, and she was an amazing, really loving mother to her kids, and she took her own life after 24 months in a partnership where she was methodically broken down by her companion,” she explained.

“She endured physical assaults, she was psychologically tortured, she was dominated and dismantled piece by piece until she was unable to envision a path ahead. The individual who caused this walked free, because we call it suicide, we close the file and we move on.

“Yet I was unable to continue,” 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 went to the police, when I pleaded with 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 passing. The domestic homicide review, which I had to fight for, required five years and had no impact. A four day inquest found self-inflicted death, despite substantial proof over a extremely distressing four day period of domestic abuse and shortcomings by various agencies.”

The mother told the meeting that for eight years she has “struggled against a establishment that refuses to see what is obvious”.

She said the suicide is homicide movement was vital “since when someone takes their own life after they’ve endured family violence, we have to examine it for what it truly represents, which is murder.

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

“The statutes exist. We require determination, we need law enforcement to conduct thorough inquiries. We need the Crown Prosecution Service to take legal action. We need the judiciary to recognize that words and control can cause death just as much as hands and weapons.”

Political Response

At a second meeting in the House of Commons, led by a opposition politician, and attended by the government official, the bereaved relatives again told their stories.

A junior minister told the meeting: “Such fatalities are often written off as if they were their decision, they chose to do this, when, in truth, these were the culmination of in fact, another person’s abuse, and these are not isolated stories.”

“Our law is broken, we are aware,” she said. “Particularly around murder or unlawful killing, it is piecemeal. 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’m not going to pretend that it’s going to be easy to fix. It is incredibly complex and challenging, particularly when you look at the matter of homicide, but we acknowledge that it requires examination.”

Prosecution Service Statement

A spokesperson for the prosecution service commented: “Domestic abuse is a heinous offense and our prosecutors are actively advised to evaluate murder and manslaughter charges in self-inflicted death instances where there is a known context of domestic abuse or other manipulative conduct.

“We have in the past prosecuted a number of defendants for causing the death of a companion they mistreated, encompassing in cases which are ongoing.

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