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Every suicide where the victim had experienced abuse at home must be considered a possible homicide, as per calls from campaigners who aim to hold abusers accountable for the devastating impact of their behavior.

This move is essential because police and prosecutors are not doing enough to bring perpetrators accountable in instances of suicide after family violence.

“Time and again, there is systemic and structural failure, especially within the legal system, to examine these fatalities with the gravity they deserve,” remarked a leader of a campaign group at a landmark gathering in London earlier this week.

The meeting, arranged by a group running a “Suicide is Homicide” initiative to fight for reform in the criminal justice system, united families who had lost loved ones to self-inflicted death following family violence.

Personal Stories of Tragedy

One mother lost her daughter 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 proof about his conduct.

Following her passing, the individual was convicted of coercive and controlling behavior and jailed for over three years. He was subsequently sentenced for three years and seven months after a second woman stepped up to disclose that she had been in a violent and abusive relationship with him.

After Chloe’s death, the parent chose to advocate for a legal change to bring perpetrators to justice; however she then discovered that laws were existing, they just weren’t often being used to secure prosecutions.

“I decided it was not a new law I needed as existing laws were in place, and after learning how much my daughter had been failed before her death by the authorities and many other agencies, they needed to do their job properly, and practices required reform,” she said.

“More than four dozen relatives have found me and just a handful of us have had a guilty verdict,” she added. “I was astonished to see such a large number who have been battling the authorities and CPS for years and receiving no resolution for their offspring or brother or sister and didn’t have a voice in case it affected investigations that were not progressing.”

Further Heartbreaking Account

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

“Hannah was energetic, she was caring,” she stated. “She was full of promise, and she was an amazing, really loving mother to her two children, and she took her own life after two years in a relationship where she was methodically broken down by her companion,” she explained.

“She was physically beaten, she was mentally tormented, she was dominated and dismantled gradually until she was unable to envision a way forward. The individual who caused this walked free, because we call it suicide, we conclude the case and we proceed.

“But I could not move on,” she remarked, “and I have not managed to move on. Honestly, she did not merely take her own life. She was killed. She was killed slowly and deliberately over a two year period, and when I went to the police, when I pleaded with them to investigate what he had done to her, I was told that there was nothing that they were able to take.

“No inquiry was conducted into her passing. The domestic violence fatality analysis, 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 very traumatic four day period of domestic abuse and shortcomings by multiple services.”

The mother informed the gathering that for eight years she has “been fighting a establishment that refuses to see what is right in front of it”.

She emphasized the suicide is homicide campaign was vital “because when someone dies by suicide 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 moment, and we need to hold abusers accountable for pushing their targets to suicide.

“We have the laws. We require determination, we need law enforcement to investigate properly. We need the prosecution authority 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 follow-up gathering in the Parliament, chaired by a opposition politician, and including the government official, the grieving families again shared their experiences.

A parliamentary under-secretary told the meeting: “Such fatalities are often dismissed as if they were their decision, they chose to do this, when, in truth, these were the culmination of actually, somebody else’s violence, and these aren’t rare incidents.”

“The legal system is flawed, we are aware,” she said. “Especially around homicide or unlawful killing, it is fragmented. It’s not written in statute anyway, 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 simple to fix. It is extremely complicated and difficult, particularly when you look at the matter of murder, but we acknowledge that it requires examination.”

Legal Authority Comment

A representative for the prosecution service commented: “Family violence is a heinous crime and our prosecutors are regularly instructed to consider homicide allegations in suicide cases where there is a established background of domestic abuse or other controlling or coercive behavior.

“We have previously charged a number of defendants for causing the death of a partner they abused, encompassing in cases which are currently active.

“We are collaborating with police and other parties to guarantee these kinds of offences are well-understood – so that we can hold offenders to justice for the full extent of their crimes.”