🔗 Share this article

Every suicide in which the victim had experienced domestic violence should be considered a possible murder case, according to demands from campaigners who seek to make perpetrators accountable for the devastating consequences of their behavior.

This step is essential because police and prosecutors are not doing enough 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 legal system, to scrutinise these deaths with the seriousness they deserve,” stated a co-director of a advocacy organization at a landmark gathering in London recently.

The assembly, arranged by a organization leading a “Self-Inflicted Death is Murder” campaign to fight for reform in the criminal justice system, brought together relatives who had lost loved ones to self-inflicted death following domestic abuse.

Individual Accounts of Tragedy

One mother experienced the death of her child her 23-year-old daughter in spring 2023. Prior to her passing, the young woman had reported her former partner to police, providing a lengthy recorded statement as evidence against him.

Following her passing, the individual was found guilty of manipulative and domineering conduct and jailed for over three years. He was subsequently jailed for an additional term after a second woman 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 new law to hold offenders to justice; yet she then realized that laws were already in place, they just were rarely applied 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 child had been let down before her taking her life by the authorities and many other agencies, they had to fulfill their duties, and things needed to change,” she said.

“More than four dozen relatives have found me and only four of us have had a conviction,” she added. “I was so shocked to see so many families who have been fighting the police and CPS for years and getting no justice for their child or brother or sister and didn’t have a voice in case it impacted inquiries that weren’t possibly going anywhere.”

Another Tragic Case

Saskia Lightburn Richie’s daughter Hannah passed away in May 2017, in what she called “the ultimate abusive action” in a campaign of abuse.

“She was energetic, she was loving,” she said. “She had great potential, and she was an exceptional, really loving mum to her kids, and she died by suicide after two years in a relationship where she was methodically broken down by her partner,” she said.

“She endured physical assaults, she was mentally tormented, she was controlled and dismantled gradually until she could not see a way forward. The man who caused this went unpunished, because we call it self-inflicted death, we close the file and we proceed.

“But I could not move on,” she said, “and I haven’t been able to move on. 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 went to the police, when I begged them to look into what he had inflicted upon her, I was told that there was nothing that they could do.

“There was no investigation into her death. The domestic violence fatality analysis, which I had to struggle to obtain, required five years and had no impact. A four day inquest found death by suicide, despite huge evidence over a extremely distressing four day period of family violence and shortcomings by multiple services.”

The mother told the meeting that for a decade she has “been fighting a establishment that refuses to see what is obvious”.

She said the self-inflicted death is murder campaign was vital “since when someone dies by suicide after they’ve suffered family violence, we have to examine it for what it really is, which is murder.

“We need to use the legislation we already possess properly and it really isn’t happening at the moment, and we need to make perpetrators responsible for driving their victims to death.

“We have the laws. We require determination, we need police to conduct thorough inquiries. We need the prosecution authority to take legal action. We need judges to understand that words and control can kill equally to physical force and arms.”

Government Reaction

At a follow-up gathering in the House of Commons, chaired by a Labour MP, and including the safeguarding minister, the grieving families again told their stories.

A junior minister informed the assembly: “Such fatalities are often dismissed as if they were their decision, they chose to do this, when, reality, these were the result of actually, another person’s abuse, and these are not rare incidents.”

“The legal system is flawed, we are aware,” she said. “Particularly around homicide or unlawful killing, it is fragmented. It lacks statutory basis anyway, it has been shaped with traditional legal customs for generations, and it is no longer fit for purpose, quite frankly, it’s the world we currently live in.

“I will not claim that it’s going to be simple to resolve. It is incredibly complex and difficult, especially when you look at the issue of homicide, but we acknowledge that it needs to be looked at.”

Prosecution Service Statement

A spokesperson for the legal body commented: “Domestic abuse is a terrible offense and our legal officers are actively advised to evaluate murder and manslaughter charges 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 several individuals for leading to the fatality of a companion they abused, encompassing in cases which are ongoing.

“We are collaborating with law enforcement and other stakeholders to ensure these kinds of offences are well-understood – so that we can hold offenders to justice for the full extent of their wrongdoings.”