This month we talk to Professor Jane Monckton-Smith.  The Professor is a specialist in homicides that are preceded by domestic abuse and coercive control.  This is important for every single professional working in the family justice field because the Professor tells us that separation is the single biggest factor in homicide.

Coercive control is domestic abuse – it is not a facet of domestic abuse. It is a pattern of behaviour designed to trap someone in a relationship.  This can be violence/ stalking/ financial abuse/ psychological  etc.  We are reminded that it is the control, not the level of physical violence that is the metric for risk.  We discuss bi-lateral violence and how difficult that is for the Court to determine risk.  The Professor tells us that there maybe two people who are being violent, but only one of them is controlling; we need to identify that person.

The Professor also tells us about the eight stages on her timeline before fatal violence.  The Professor points out that anyone who is perpetrating coercive control, domestic abuse, or stalking, is somewhere on this timeline although that does not mean that it will always result in fatal violence.   However, she questions whether concepts like ‘low-level’ domestic abuse – sometimes used when there is limited physical violence - is a helpful approach.  The issue is not whether the victim-survivor has a broken bone, it is about the level the of control.

The Professor tells us how each stage on the timeline represents an escalation, and each of these stages can cause the victim-survivor serious harm.

The Professor also reminds us that not all disputes about children involve coercive control, but we need to identify the cases where the perpetrator is using the family justice system to continue their abuse.  We need to be alert to the fact that perpetrators are likely to be very at home amongst the fray of litigation.  Victim-survivors may find it easier to just agree with what the perpetrator wants, or could appear intractable, because they are determined not to have their children experience the thing that they have.

We also talk about how to approach initial advice, injunctions, Clare’s Law, whether there should be capacity for findings made in family cases to be shared with Police, when coercive controlling people have the capacity to change, what to look for in a perpetrator course, the use of coercive control experts, and so much more. 

If you would like to know more about the Professor’s work, she has written a book ‘In Control; Dangerous Relationships and How They End in Murder’.