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Every suicide in which the victim had experienced domestic violence should be considered a possible homicide, as per calls from advocates who seek to make perpetrators accountable for the catastrophic impact of their behavior.

This move is essential because police and prosecutors are not doing enough to hold offenders to justice in instances of self-inflicted death following domestic abuse.

“Time and again, there is systemic and structural failure, particularly within the legal system, to scrutinise these deaths with the seriousness they deserve,” remarked a co-director of a campaign group at a landmark meeting in Westminster earlier this week.

The meeting, organized by a organization leading a “Self-Inflicted Death is Murder” campaign to advocate for reform in the legal framework, united families who had suffered bereavement to self-inflicted death after family violence.

Personal Stories of Loss

One mother experienced the death of her child her 23-year-old daughter in spring 2023. Prior to her passing, the young woman had informed her former partner to authorities, submitting a two-hour video interview as evidence about his conduct.

Following her passing, the individual was found guilty of manipulative and domineering conduct and imprisoned for over three years. He was later jailed for an additional term after a another victim came forward to report that she had been in a harmful partnership with him.

In the wake of her loss, the mother chose to advocate for a legal change to bring perpetrators to justice; yet she then realized that regulations were existing, they just weren’t often being used to achieve convictions.

“I concluded it wasn’t a fresh legislation I needed as current statutes were already there, and after learning how much my daughter had been let down previous to her death by the police and many other agencies, they needed to do their job properly, and practices needed to change,” she explained.

“More than four dozen relatives have found me and just a handful of us have had a guilty verdict,” she continued. “I was so shocked to see so many families who have been fighting the authorities and prosecution service for a long time and receiving no resolution for their child or brother or sister and didn’t have a voice in case it impacted investigations that weren’t possibly going anywhere.”

Further Heartbreaking Account

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

“Hannah was vibrant, she was loving,” she stated. “She had great potential, and she was an exceptional, deeply devoted mother to her two children, and she took her own life after two years in a partnership where she was methodically broken down by her partner,” she said.

“She endured physical assaults, she was mentally tormented, she was controlled and broken down gradually until she was unable to envision a path ahead. The individual who caused this went unpunished, because we call it suicide, we close the file and we move on.

“But I could not move on,” she remarked, “and I haven’t been able to let go. Honestly, she didn’t just die by suicide. She was killed. Her death was gradual and deliberately over a two year period, and when I approached the authorities, when I begged them to look into what he had inflicted upon her, I was informed that there was nothing that they could do.

“There was no investigation into her passing. The domestic violence fatality analysis, which I had to fight for, took five years and had no impact. A lengthy coroner’s hearing found death by suicide, notwithstanding substantial proof over a very traumatic multi-day session of domestic abuse and failings by various agencies.”

The mother informed the gathering that for a decade she has “been fighting a establishment that ignores what is obvious”.

She said the suicide is homicide movement was critical “because when someone takes their own life after they’ve suffered domestic abuse, we have to examine it for what it truly represents, which is homicide.

“We must apply the laws we already possess effectively and it is not occurring at the present, and we need to hold abusers accountable for driving their victims to death.

“The statutes exist. We need the will, we need law enforcement to conduct thorough inquiries. We need the prosecution authority to prosecute. We need the judiciary to understand that verbal abuse and manipulation can cause death equally to hands and weapons.”

Political Response

At a follow-up gathering in the House of Commons, chaired by a Labour MP, and attended by the government official, the grieving families again shared their experiences.

A junior minister informed the assembly: “Such fatalities are often dismissed as if they were their decision, they opted for this, when, in truth, these were the culmination of in fact, somebody else’s violence, and these aren’t rare incidents.”

“The legal system is flawed, we are aware,” she stated. “Especially around murder or manslaughter, it is piecemeal. It lacks statutory basis anyway, it has been developed with common law practices for centuries, 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 fix. It is extremely complicated and challenging, especially when you look at the matter of homicide, but we acknowledge that it needs to be looked at.”

Legal Authority Comment

A spokesperson for the prosecution service said: “Family violence is a heinous crime and our legal officers are actively advised to evaluate homicide allegations in self-inflicted death instances where there is a known context of family violence or other manipulative conduct.

“We have previously charged a number of defendants for causing the death of a partner 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 well-understood – so that we can hold offenders to justice for the complete scope of their crimes.”