Policy paper

Amendment to the controlling or coercive behaviour offence

Updated 3 January 2024

What are we going to do?

Section 76 of the Serious Crime Act 2015 provides for the offence of controlling or coercive behaviour, where the perpetrator and the victim are personally connected.

Under the current legislation personally connected means intimate partners, or former intimate partners or family members who live together.

The amendment to the legislation removes the co-habitation requirement, ensuring that post-separation abuse and familial domestic abuse is provided for when the victim and perpetrator do not live together.

Controlling or coercive behaviour is an insidious form of domestic abuse and this Government is committed to ensuring all victims are protected. We recognise that coercive or controlling behaviours may escalate following separation, and that members of a victim’s extended family may be involved in control or coercion. We have heard the calls from experts on this matter, and I am very pleased to say that the Government will be removing the co-habitation requirement contained within the offence through an amendment to the Domestic Abuse Bill at Report stage in the House of Lords. This amendment will bring the controlling or coercive behaviour offence into line with the statutory definition of domestic abuse in clause 1 of the Bill and send a clear message to both victims and perpetrators that controlling or coercive behaviours, irrespective of living status, are a form of domestic abuse.

Victoria Atkins MP, Minister for Safeguarding, Written Ministerial Statement , 1st March 2021

How are we going to do it?

On 1st March 2021 the Minister for Safeguarding, Victoria Atkins MP, announced that the government would amend section 76 of the Serious Crime Act 2015 though the Domestic Abuse Bill.

With this amendment the definition of personally connected in section 76 of the Serious Crime Act will be replaced with the definition in Part 1 of the Domestic Abuse Act 2021.

The Government will also update the current statutory guidance relating to the controlling or coercive behaviour offence.

Background

Section 76 of the Serious Crime Act 2015 provides for the offence of controlling or coercive behaviour in an intimate or family relationship. The stated aim of this offence was to close a gap in the law around patterns of coercive or controlling behaviour (CCB) during a relationship between intimate partners or family members.

For the offence to be applicable, victims of controlling or coercive behaviour must be “personally connected” to their abuser at the time of the behaviour. This definition applies to those in an intimate personal relationship (whether or not they live together) or to those who live together and have either been in an intimate relationship or are members of the same family. As such, the section 76 offence currently does not apply when two people are either ex-intimate partners or family members who do not live together.

Following the 2018 consultation on domestic abuse, the Government committed to conducting a review into the controlling or coercive behaviour offence. The review sought to assess whether or not changes to the legislation or wider policy interventions are needed.

The review was published in March 2021. It found that, since the offence came into force in December 2015, police recorded CCB offences, as well as CCB prosecutions, have increased year on year. These increases demonstrate that the CCB offence is being used across the criminal justice system (CJS), indicating that the legislation has provided an improved legal framework to tackle CCB.

However, the Review recognised that there is still room for improvement, particularly with regard to raising awareness of what constitutes CCB among the public and across the CJS, and improving the ability of the CJS to record, evidence and prosecute these crimes. The Review also considered views from a number of stakeholders who expressed concern that the cohabitation requirement within the offence is preventing some victims of this abuse from seeking justice, and poses challenges for police and prosecutors to evidence and charge abusive behaviours under other applicable legislation.

Calls from domestic abuse services echo concerns around the cohabitation requirement of the CCB offence, given victims who leave their perpetrator are often subjected to sustained or increased coercive or controlling behaviour post-separation, and are statistically at the highest risk of homicide within the period immediately after leaving.

Following the review into the offence and wider calls from expert organisations, the Government agreed to remove the cohabitation requirement.

Is controlling or coercive behaviour being prosecuted under the current offence?

The number of CCB offences that reached a first hearing at a magistrates’ court has increased year on year. From 2016/17– the first full year in which CCB cases reached this stage of the CJS – to 2017/18, for instance, numbers increased threefold from 309 to 960 (ONS, 2019c).

The number increased by a further 23% in 2018/19, to 1,177 prosecutions (ONS, 2019c) and to 1,208 in 2019/20.

Are the Police effectively identifying cases of controlling or coercive behaviour under the current offence?

Since we introduced the offence of controlling or coercive behaviour in December 2015, we have worked closely with the police and prosecutors to ensure that the law is used to maximum effect.

The number of recorded CCB offences has increased year on year since the introduction of the offence.

Why are the volumes of recorded CCB offences much lower than the volumes of other domestic abuse-related offences?

The CCB offence is what is called a ‘course of conduct’ offence. This means that each CCB offence consists of numerous incidents and repeated patterns of abuse – potentially from a period of several years. Most other domestic abuse-related offences, by contrast, each relate to a single individual incident, such as an assault. Volumes of course of conduct offences, therefore, are not comparable to volumes of other offence types. Any comparison between a course of conduct offence like CCB and single incident offences must take into account these differences.

Key Facts

The number of recorded CCB offences has increased year on year, with the number of recorded offences more than doubling from 4,246 in 2016/17 to 9,053 in 2017/18, and nearly doubling again to 17,616 in 2018/19. In 2019/20 there were 24,856 CCB offences being recorded (this data is only from forces that responded, so actual numbers are likely to be higher) (CCB Review).

In 2019, 1,112 defendants were prosecuted for CCB offences (either as the principal or non-principal offence), which is an increase of 18% from the previous year.