The importance of embedding understandings of coercive control in the criminal justice system

This inaugural lecture will explore the advances in legal reform in the UK which have created offences that criminalise coercive control in intimate relationships.

Professor Vanessa Bettinson will explain how her work has demonstrated the importance of recognising this behaviour in the criminal courts, arguing that more reform is needed for a consistent approach. She will outline how, in particular, defences are needed that recognise the impact experiences of coercive control in an intimate or family relationship has on an offender's criminality, which should reduce their culpability. 

About the Speaker

Vanessa Bettinson is a professor of law and a Vice Chancellor Research Fellow at Northumbria School of Law, Northumbria University, having previously worked at De Montfort University, Leicester. Her research interest and published work has a core theme of embedding understandings of domestic violence and abuse in the criminal law. However, she also explores issues relating to vulnerability more broadly. She has extensive experience in organising interdisciplinary events both nationally and internationally which are forums for academics and practitioners working in domestic violence and abuse. For the most part her approach to research is socio-legal and she collaborates with external partners and academics in diverse disciplines. She is a member of Northumbria University's Gender, Violence and Abuse Interdisciplinary Research Theme.

Her recent funded work includes:

Exploring the use of artificial intelligence to identify perpertrators of technology facilitated coercive control, Home Office Domestic Abuse Perpetrator Fund in 2021-22. The research team consisted of academics based in computer science, criminology and social work.

Place to Call Home Project: Unaccompanied Asylum-Seeking Children and Foster Care Provision, Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, Lead Partner Leicesteshire County Council, 2020-2022. The research team included academics from law and social work.

Her current research projects focus on sentencing of women whose crimes are driven by coercive control, public perceptions of self-defence where violence is used as a response to domestic abuse and exploring children's experiences of reporting crime within the criminal justice system in England.