Coercive Control: The Most Dangerous Form of Domestic Abuse We’re Still Failing to Stop

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Coercive control isn’t just another form of abuse. It’s the foundation of it - a persistent, invisible form of violence that wraps itself around every part of a victim’s life. And despite being a criminal offence in the UK since 2015, it remains widely misunderstood, minimised, and dangerously overlooked - especially in the family courts.

What Is Coercive Control?

Coercive control is a deliberate pattern of behaviour designed to dominate, isolate, and destabilise. It doesn’t leave bruises—but it shatters lives.

It often starts quietly:

• Isolating you from friends and family

• Telling you what to wear or eat

• Monitoring your phone, your bank account, your movements

• Undermining your confidence—making you feel “too emotional,” “crazy,” or to blame

Before long, you stop recognising yourself. You doubt your own instincts. You lose your voice.

And too often, it escalates:

• Forced pregnancies or terminations

• Sexual assault and reproductive coercion

• Financial and economic abuse

• Ongoing threats and control—even after separation

This isn’t love. It’s toxic. It’s deliberate. It’s criminal. And for many victims—especially mothers—it becomes a cage with no clear way out.

Why Coercively Controlling Fathers Are So Dangerous

Let’s name the reality: 97% of those convicted for coercive control are men. And the risks don’t stop when the relationship ends.

Emerging legal and psychological research shows:

• Coercive control causes more long-term trauma than physical violence alone

• Children are harmed emotionally, psychologically—even physically

• Many abusive fathers continue to manipulate and harm their children post-separation

• Courts often mandate contact, even when it retraumatises the child

• Children frequently thrive without contact from the abusive parent

This is not about “bad breakups” or “bitter exes.” This is about ongoing harm. Children don’t just witness abuse - they live in it.

So Why Are We Still Getting It Wrong?

Too often, coercive control is dismissed in court as a “he said/she said” dispute. Protective mothers are accused of parental alienation. Abusers reframe their behaviour as “concern” or “being involved.”

And the systems meant to protect?

Family courts, social services, even the police often fail to grasp the subtlety and severity of coercive control. Worse—they sometimes enable it, by insisting on contact “in the child’s best interest,” even when the child is frightened or traumatised.

We don’t expect victims of other crimes to stay in contact with their abuser.

So why are we forcing children to?

What Needs to Change?

We urgently need a seismic shift in how coercive control is understood and handled:

• Recognise coercive control as a core safeguarding issue—not a relationship dispute

• Base child contact decisions on safety and trauma—not generic assumptions about shared parenting

• Stop labelling protective parents as “alienators”—protecting children from abuse is not alienation

• Enforce real consequences for post-separation abuse, including the use of children as weapons of control

Coercive control is a red alert.

It’s time our legal and safeguarding systems treated it as one.

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Deanna Newell Family Law

Advocacy for truth-tellers, survivors, and the children who deserve better