Each self-inflicted death in which the deceased had endured domestic violence must be treated as a possible murder case, according to calls from advocates who seek to hold abusers responsible for the catastrophic consequences of their actions.
This step is necessary because law enforcement are failing to bring perpetrators to justice in cases of self-inflicted death after family violence.
“In case after case, there is widespread breakdown, especially within the criminal justice system, to scrutinise these fatalities with the gravity they warrant,” stated a leader of a advocacy organization at a significant gathering in Westminster earlier this week.
The meeting, organized by a group leading a “Suicide is Homicide” campaign to advocate for reform in the criminal justice system, brought together relatives who had lost loved ones to suicide after family violence.
One mother lost her daughter Chloe Holland in spring 2023. Prior to her passing, Chloe had reported her former partner to authorities, providing a two-hour video interview as evidence against him.
After her death, the individual was convicted of coercive and controlling behavior and jailed for over three years. He was subsequently sentenced for an additional term after a second woman stepped up to report that she had been in a harmful partnership with him.
In the wake of her loss, 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 achieve convictions.
“I decided it wasn’t a fresh legislation I needed as current statutes were already there, and after finding out how much my child had been failed previous to her taking her life by the authorities and many other agencies, they had to do their job properly, and practices needed to change,” she explained.
“More than four dozen relatives have contacted me and only four of us have had a guilty verdict,” she continued. “I was so shocked to see so many families who have been fighting the police and CPS for years and receiving no resolution for their offspring or brother or sister and could not speak out in case it impacted investigations that were not progressing.”
Saskia Lightburn Richie’s child Hannah passed away in May 2017, in what she described as “the final act of violence” in a prolonged pattern of mistreatment.
“She was vibrant, she was loving,” she stated. “She had great potential, and she was an exceptional, really loving mother to her two children, and she took her own life after 24 months in a relationship where she was methodically broken down by her companion,” she said.
“She was physically beaten, she was mentally tormented, she was dominated and dismantled gradually until she could not see a way forward. The man who caused this went unpunished, because we call it suicide, we conclude the case and we proceed.
“But I could not move on,” she said, “and I haven’t been able to let go. 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 inflicted upon her, I was informed that there was nothing that they were able to take.
“There was no investigation into her death. The domestic homicide review, which I had to struggle to obtain, took five years and had no impact. A four day inquest determined death by suicide, despite huge evidence over a extremely distressing four day period of domestic abuse and shortcomings by various agencies.”
The mother told the meeting that for a decade she has “struggled against a system that ignores what is obvious”.
She said the suicide is homicide campaign was critical “since when someone takes their own life after they’ve suffered family violence, we have to investigate it for what it truly represents, which is murder.
“We need to use the legislation we currently have effectively and it is not occurring at the present, and we need to make perpetrators responsible for pushing their targets to suicide.
“We have the laws. We require determination, we need police to investigate properly. We need the Crown Prosecution Service to prosecute. We need judges to understand that verbal abuse and manipulation can kill equally to hands and weapons.”
At a follow-up gathering in the House of Commons, chaired by a opposition politician, and including the safeguarding minister, the grieving families again told their stories.
A junior minister told the meeting: “These deaths are often written off as if they were their own choice, they chose to do this, when, in truth, these were the culmination of in fact, another person’s abuse, and these aren’t isolated stories.”
“Our law is broken, we know that,” she said. “Particularly around homicide or manslaughter, it is fragmented. It lacks statutory basis regardless, it has been developed with traditional legal customs 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 easy to fix. It is extremely complicated and difficult, especially when you consider the matter of murder, but we acknowledge that it needs to be looked at.”
A representative for the legal body commented: “Family violence is a terrible crime and our legal officers are regularly instructed to evaluate homicide allegations in self-inflicted death instances where there is a established background of domestic abuse or other manipulative conduct.
“We have in the past prosecuted a number of defendants for leading to the fatality of a companion they mistreated, including in cases which are ongoing.
“We are collaborating with police and other parties to ensure these kinds of offences are clearly recognized – so that we can hold offenders to justice for the full extent of their crimes.”
