Does the ever-expanding scope of domestic abuse law risk creating confusion & inconsistency in prosecution? Danielle Reece-Greenhalgh investigates
- While some of the changes brought about by the Domestic Abuse Act 2021 are welcome, others—such as the expansion of the offence of ‘controlling or coercive behaviour’—risk causing inconsistency in sentencing due to the overlap with existing offences.
In the October 2019 edition of Corker Binning’s The Knowledge I wrote about the (then relatively new) offence of controlling or coercive behaviour (CCB) created by the Serious Crime Act 2015 (SCA 2015). I argued that the extraordinarily wide ambit of CCB might result in its abuse by litigants in acrimonious divorce or separation proceedings. Since that article, it is this firm’s experience that the investigation and prosecution of CCB has been a mixed bag. Some allegations of CCB have been meritorious and have rightly resulted in successful convictions. Other allegations of CCB have been nakedly abusive and constructed entirely to achieve a collateral advantage in family or other proceedings.
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