There has been a lot in the news recently about coercive control which is now a criminal offence. In the criminal courts this is a new arena and of course the burden of proof that the prosecution must reach is quite high compared to the situation in divorce courts.
What amounts to coercive control will be different in each instance. In the case of Mr and Mrs Marsden, the wife complained that her husband had told her what to wear, had prevented her from seeing her children and had controlled all elements of their finances. In other cases a spouse will control all phone calls, will prevent their partner from meeting friends. I have come across cases where the house is bugged so that all conversations were listened to, or clients who had to account for their whereabouts all day long. Similar to the case of Ruth Dodsworth the TV Presenter. Her husband would ring her dozens of times a day to check up on her. The important thing about the new offence of coercive control is that the abusive partner can be sent to jail. This will at least give the victim some time and space to start on the road to recovery and a new life. But not every case requires this. There has been protection under the law for this type of behaviour for decades. Many many times I have sought injunctions on behalf of my clients when they have suffered physical or mental abuse at the hands of their partners. I can tell you it’s a brave day when a man or woman walks through my door to seek help. I know that what they are doing is very difficult. I see my job as being to help my clients plan an escape, either on an urgent basis or with a slightly longer term plan. One of the earliest cases I dealt with in my career involved a lady whose husband was very violent towards her and the children. They were all terrified of him. My client had no money and no job. Her husband was actually quite well off but of course part of his control was keeping his wife short of money at all times. It was clear to me that my client had mild learning difficulties. So much so that she had no idea that what was happening to her was actually rape. I still wonder how she plucked up the courage to come and see me. However, in short I was able to obtain an injunction preventing her husband from returning to the house and from intimidating her and the children further. I put her in touch with the local women’s refuge who offered her counselling and I then set about obtaining a divorce and a financial settlement which allowed my client and the children to stay in their home with enough money to live on. I know that for many of you reading this it’s very hard to even recognise that you are being abused, or if you have realised then how are you going to extricate yourself and your children, if you have any, from this situation. I know that you may well be living with typical patterns of behaviour, he or she only becomes angry when drunk or high on drugs, they always apologise the next day. Or it was my fault that he smashed his fist through the door, I shouldn’t have started the argument. Or I don’t want to admit that my girlfriend stabbed me with a can opener, I’m a bouncer after all, how would that look. So where to start? At Emmersons Solicitors our family lawyers offer a Next Steps in Divorce and Separation appointment. The idea is that we discuss your current situation including accommodation, income and savings of both you and your partner, the levels of control or violence. We then help you to come up with a plan. It might be that you are going to move savings or save up on the quiet for a deposit for rented accommodation. This would be a stop gap only until you obtain a proper financial settlement. It might be putting you in touch with a counsellor. It might be an injunction to remove your partner from the matrimonial home or we might help you to report matters to the police. In any event the idea is to give you all of the information you will need in order to plan ahead. Some clients take advantage of this initial advice and then we don’t see them for months whilst they go away and think about things. But that’s fine, that’s why we offer our Fixed Fee Initial Divorce interviews. They are designed to be cost effective. We don’t offer free interviews as we want to spend a decent amount of time with our clients covering all options. I have worked at firms before where we were so packed to the gunnels with people seeking free advice that we couldn’t get to the files of our ongoing clients. So we have designed a scheme that works well for us and for our clients. We find that clients have a huge sense of relief when they have been to see us. They leave with the feeling that all is not lost and that there are ways out of their situation. I know it is a difficult journey, but I always ask my clients to try to look ahead. To the time when their lives are back on track and when I am just a distant memory. If you need help then please don’t hesitate to contact me. I can help you to move on with your life.
