The Hidden Crime of Coercive Control

How Misunderstanding Patterns Lets Abuse Persist

Coercive control is one of the most damaging forms of abuse, yet it remains widely misunderstood by the very systems responsible for investigating, prosecuting, and judging it. Police, prosecutors, and judges often fail to recognise the cumulative patterns of control that define this crime. Without understanding what coercive control actually looks like in everyday life, victims are left unprotected, cases fail to reach conviction, and post-separation abuse continues largely unchecked. Conviction rates remain around one to two per cent, not because the law is insufficient, but because the evidence and the harm it represents are often invisible to those tasked with enforcing justice.

But sentencing is not the problem we are failing to solve.

The fundamental issue is this: coercive control is still widely misunderstood by the very systems responsible for investigating, prosecuting, and judging it. And if we cannot recognise it, we cannot prosecute it. Longer sentences matter very little when conviction rates remain at around one to two per cent.

The Current Reality

Coercive controlling behaviour became a criminal offence in England and Wales in 2015 under the Serious Crime Act. Nearly a decade later:

• Conviction rates remain critically low

• Police often fail to recognise coercive control as a pattern rather than a single incident

• The CPS frequently declines cases citing “insufficient evidence”

• Cases that do reach court are often dismissed, downgraded, or reframed

This is not because coercive control is rare. It is because we are still looking for the wrong thing.

What We Think Coercive Control Looks Like

We expect:

• One dramatic incident

• Physical violence

• Explicit threats

• A clear turning point

• Something that resembles a crime drama

What Coercive Control Actually Looks Like

It looks like:

• A text asking for money for groceries for the fiftieth time

• Asking permission to use the car, despite it being your own

• Being unable to drive without shaking because you have been criticised so relentlessly

• Asking permission to buy a haircut, a takeaway, or children’s shoes

• Not knowing your partner’s earnings after five years together

• Having to justify every purchase, decision, and movement

Each of these may seem minor on its own. Together, they form a pattern of power and control. This is the evidence. This is what coercive control looks like.

The Pattern Is the Crime

Coercive control is not about isolated incidents. It is about cumulative harm:

• Erosion of confidence through constant criticism

• Erosion of self-worth through systematic belittling

• Erosion of autonomy by removing the ability to make decisions

• Erosion of identity by controlling appearance, relationships, work, and finances

No single act needs to be extreme. The devastation lies in the accumulation.

The Evidence Gap

Here is where the justice system struggles:

• Legal standard: beyond reasonable doubt

• Evidence available: pattern-based, not incident-based

• What courts expect: a “big event”

• What victims have: years of messages, emails, financial controls, and fear

That gap is where justice is lost.

Real examples of coercive control evidence include:

• Hundreds of messages asking for money for basic necessities

• Late-night texts monitoring whereabouts

• Requests for permission to buy essential items for a child

• Medical records showing severe anxiety

• Citizens Advice notes where victims were too frightened to name the perpetrator

• Emails justifying every household expense

• Bank records showing no access to financial information

• Witness statements documenting behavioural changes

• Professional records from GPs, therapists, and domestic abuse services

This is not a crime scene. It is everyday life. That is why it is so difficult to prosecute.

Post-Separation Abuse: The Continuation of Control

Coercive control does not end when a relationship ends. It often intensifies. Post-separation abuse includes:

• Using child contact as a tool of control

• Financial abuse through maintenance manipulation

• Ongoing harassment years after separation

• Legal abuse through vexatious applications

• Triangulation via friends, family, or professionals

• Using institutions such as courts, schools, and police as weapons

• Economic sabotage

• Stalking by proxy

Yet this is routinely reframed as “high-conflict co-parenting” or “contact disputes”. It is neither. It is continued abuse using different mechanisms.

Training Alone Will Not Deliver Justice

Ten years is enough. Coercive controlling behaviour has been a crime since 2015. Police, CPS, and the judiciary have had a decade to embed understanding, yet conviction rates remain at 1-2 per cent.

Training in isolation is not the answer. Agencies operate in silos. Teams and tools do not communicate. Patterns of coercive control emerge over time and across contexts, but these remain invisible when each actor works alone.

Even promising reforms are limited without accountability. The CPS may have a five-year plan. The government is moving to repeal the presumption of contact. The police are centralising. But frontline actors such as police officers and family court judges are not required to be trained and are not held accountable.

Victims navigating the courts alone are particularly vulnerable. Litigants in person face judges who do not understand coercive control, undervalue pattern evidence, and may unintentionally dismiss cumulative harm. Without systemic accountability, training is a checkbox exercise, not a solution.

Justice requires both: robust, widespread training and mechanisms to ensure understanding is applied consistently and responsibly at the frontline.

What Needs to Change

Training at every level: Police, CPS, judiciary, and family courts must be trained to recognise pattern-based evidence and cumulative harm.

A fundamental redefinition of evidence: Patterns of permission-seeking, financial control, impact on mental health, and professional corroboration must be recognised as evidence, not dismissed as context.

Lower barriers to prosecution: Victim testimony supported by corroborating pattern evidence must be treated as sufficient to meet thresholds.

Recognition of post-separation abuse: PSA must be recognised as a continuation of coercive control, considered in criminal and family courts, and factored into safeguarding and sentencing.

Specialist prosecutors and courts: Coercive control cases require expertise in trauma, pattern recognition, and cumulative harm. Without it, cases will continue to fail.

The Bottom Line

Yes, increase the maximum sentence to ten years. Coercive control destroys lives, and sentencing should reflect that.

But without systemic understanding, those sentences will remain theoretical. Conviction rates will stay low. Cases will continue to be dismissed. Victims will continue to be told there is “insufficient evidence”.

Not because the law does not exist, but because we still do not understand what we are looking at.

That is the justice gap. It is long past time to close it.