Robert Buckland – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Robert Buckland on 2014-04-09.

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether there are any plans to create a legal framework which criminalises patterns of coercive control.

Norman Baker

Domestic abuse is a crime and we already have a framework which covers coercive
control.

There is a range of existing offences for which a perpetrator of domestic violence can be prosecuted, including common assault.
Coercive control can amount to common assault where the perpetrator, via their
words or actions, intentionally or recklessly causes another to fear unlawful
or immediate violence. In sentencing, the courts can also take into account as
aggravating factors a range of features which are common in domestic violence
cases, such as the vulnerability of the victim, the repeated nature of the
assaults and abuse of power by the perpetrator.

Last September, the Home Secretary commissioned Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of
Constabulary to conduct a review of the response to domestic abuse
across all police forces. The Inspectorate published its findings in March
2014. It emphasises that the key priority is a culture change in the police so that
domestic violence and abuse is treated as the crime that it is and the police
use the full range of tools already available to them.

The Home Secretary will chair a national oversight group to oversee delivery
against each of HMIC’s recommendations on which I will also sit.