Two years after new domestic abuse laws made “coercive or controlling behaviour” criminal offences for the first time police forces remain poorly trained and ill-equipped to deal with the new crimes, MPs and campaigners say.



Latest official figures show that only eight out of 43 police forces across England and Wales have rolled out a new national training programme and this lack of training is reflected in the low number of prosecutions involving the new offences.

A recent freedom of information request by the Bureau for Investigative Journalism revealed that just 532 charges have been brought under the new laws in the 29 police force areas that responded to the request. Six police forces have brought five charges or fewer since the new offences were brought into force on 29 December 2015.

The Office for National Statistics says police forces recorded only 4,246 cases of coercive or controlling behaviour in the 12 months to March 2017. This is against a backdrop in which it is officially estimated that 1.2 million women and 713,000 men have suffered some form of domestic violence in the past year. A recent University of Gloucestershire report found that controlling behaviour was an element in 92% of 358 domestic murders they had studied.



Elfyn Llwyd, the Plaid Cymru MP, whose 10-minute rule bill in February 2014 first proposed the new offence, said he was frustrated that there had been such a poor take-up of training by police forces across the country, which had been reflected in the low number of prosecutions.



The official definition of “coercive and controlling behaviour” is an act or a pattern of acts of assault, threats, humiliation and intimidation or other abuse that is used by an individual to harm, punish, or frighten their victim.

Controlling behaviour is officially defined as a range of acts designed to make a person subordinate and/or dependent by isolating them from sources of support, exploiting their resources and capacities for personal gain, depriving them of the means needed for independence, resistance and escape and regulating their everyday behaviour.



Examples can include preventing victims from seeing friends, stopping them from having hobbies, controlling their finances or where they are allowed to go.



Llywd’s private member’s bill led to the government bringing forward its own legislation which was due to be enacted in March 2015. However, concerns raised by Plaid Cymru about the need for police training before the new offence came into effect led to its delay and it finally reached the statute book on 29 December 2015 – exactly two years ago.



Llwyd said: “It was important that coercive and controlling behaviour were made criminal offences and I am proud to have secured that step forward but that it has been so poorly followed up by the Westminster government is very frustrating, particularly given the warnings Plaid Cymru made at the time that the police needed to be trained.

“The poor take-up of training amongst the Welsh and English police forces is reflected in the low number of prosecutions. The Westminster government must now ensure that training is made mandatory and funded centrally.”

The Home Office minister Nick Hurd told MPs in a Commons written answer earlier this month that the new College of Policing training programme, Domestic Abuse Matters, which focuses on improved evidence gathering and understanding of controlling and coercive behaviour had been rolled out in eight police forces so far and plans were in place to roll it out in a further two.

“In addition, the college national curriculum relating to domestic abuse and coercive control is embedded in full into national recruit training, and the college has published authorised professional practice on investigating domestic violence and abuse capturing controlling or coercive behaviour,” the minister added.

But Llwyd and Plaid Cyrmu’s home affairs spokesperson, Liz Saville Roberts, said the Home Office needed to fund a centrally procured training programme for the police to ensure there were adequately informed on the new law.

Harry Fletcher, director of the Victims’ Rights campaign, who was involved in drafting the new law, said: “It was essential that ministers recognised that psychological abuse in a domestic setting was made an offence. But training was critical, indeed we asked for a six-month delay so that it could be delivered to the police. The latest figures for prosecutions started is extremely worrying and is no doubt related to the training failures. There needs to be a cultural shift amongst police mangers and first responders. We would urge that government invest in such training without delay,” he said.