Suicides Connected to Family Violence Should Be Investigated as Potential Murders, Urge UK Relatives

Every suicide in which the victim had endured domestic violence must be treated as a possible murder case, according to calls from advocates who aim to make perpetrators responsible for the catastrophic consequences of their behavior.

This step is necessary because police and prosecutors are not doing enough to hold offenders accountable in cases of self-inflicted death after domestic abuse.

“In case after case, there is systemic and structural failure, especially within the legal system, to scrutinise these deaths with the gravity they deserve,” remarked a leader of a advocacy organization during a significant gathering in Westminster recently.

The assembly, arranged by a organization running a “Self-Inflicted Death is Murder” campaign to fight for change in the legal framework, brought together relatives who had suffered bereavement to self-inflicted death after family violence.

Personal Stories of Tragedy

One mother lost her daughter Chloe Holland in spring 2023. Prior to her passing, Chloe had informed her former partner to police, providing a lengthy recorded statement as proof against him.

After her death, the individual was convicted of coercive and controlling behavior 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 harmful partnership with him.

In the wake of her loss, the parent chose to advocate for a new law to bring perpetrators to justice; yet she then discovered that regulations were already in place, they just weren’t often being used to achieve convictions.

“I decided it wasn’t a new law I needed as existing laws were in place, and after finding out how much my daughter had been let down previous to her taking her life by the police and numerous services, they had to do their job properly, and practices needed to change,” she said.

“More than four dozen relatives have contacted me and only four of us have had a conviction,” she added. “I was astonished to see such a large number who have been fighting the police and CPS for years and getting no justice for their offspring or sibling and didn’t have a voice in case it affected inquiries that were not progressing.”

Another Tragic Case

Saskia Lightburn Richie’s child Hannah passed away in May 2017, in what she described as “the final act of violence” in a campaign of abuse.

“Hannah was energetic, she was caring,” she said. “She had great potential, and she was an amazing, really loving mother to her kids, and she died by suicide after 24 months in a partnership where she was methodically broken down by her partner,” she said.

“She was physically beaten, she was mentally tormented, she was controlled and broken down piece by piece until she was unable to envision a path ahead. The individual who did this to her went unpunished, because we label it suicide, we close the file and we proceed.

“Yet I was unable to continue,” she remarked, “and I haven’t been able to move on. 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 approached the authorities, when I pleaded with them to investigate what he had done to her, I was told that there was no action that they were able to take.

“There was no investigation into her death. The domestic homicide review, which I had to struggle to obtain, required five years and changed nothing. A lengthy coroner’s hearing found death by suicide, notwithstanding substantial proof over a very traumatic four day period of family violence and shortcomings by multiple services.”

The parent informed the gathering that for eight years she has “been fighting a system that ignores what is obvious”.

She said the suicide is homicide campaign was critical “because when an individual takes their own life after they’ve suffered family violence, we have to examine it for what it truly represents, which is murder.

“We must apply the laws we already possess properly and it is not occurring at the present, and we need to make perpetrators responsible for driving their victims to death.

“The statutes exist. We need the will, we need police to investigate properly. We need the Crown Prosecution Service to take legal action. We need the judiciary to understand that verbal abuse and manipulation can kill equally to physical force and arms.”

Political Response

At a follow-up gathering in the Parliament, led by a opposition politician, and attended by the government official, the grieving families again shared their experiences.

A junior minister informed the assembly: “These deaths are often written off as if they were their decision, they opted for this, when, in truth, these were the result of actually, somebody else’s violence, and these are not isolated stories.”

“The legal system is flawed, we know that,” she said. “Especially around murder or unlawful killing, it is piecemeal. It lacks statutory basis regardless, it has been shaped with common law practices for generations, and it is outdated, quite frankly, given the society we currently live in.

“I will not claim that it’s going to be easy to fix. It is incredibly complex and challenging, especially when you consider the issue of murder, but we acknowledge that it requires examination.”

Prosecution Service Statement

A spokesperson for the legal body said: “Family violence is a heinous crime and our prosecutors are actively advised to evaluate homicide allegations in self-inflicted death instances 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 mistreated, encompassing in proceedings which are ongoing.

“We are also working with police and other parties to ensure these kinds of offences are well-understood – so that we can hold offenders accountable for the full extent of their wrongdoings.”