October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month

DVAM  2025 UK Serious Crimes Act and Spain 1/2004, comprehensive protection measures.

As October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month,  I thought I would look at UK and Spanish laws on violence against women. It has now been five years this month that I was advised by an English-speaking Spanish Solicitor to file a gender violence complaint against a former partner. The realisation had already hit home before I went to seek legal advice. The issue I had was that I did not want to file a gender violence complaint. It took me a couple of years before I understood why I thought that way.

Question: Why did the UK list coercive control under the Serious Crimes Act ten years ago?

The UK law creating the criminal offence of Controlling or Coercive Behaviour in an intimate or family relationship was introduced under Section 76 of the Serious Crime Act 2015. 

Why was it introduced?

The law was introduced to fill a gap in the legal system. Traditional laws against abuse primarily focused on single, violent incidents (like assault). Campaigners, domestic abuse charities (like Women’s Aid), and legal experts argued that this failed to capture the insidious, sustained pattern of non-physical abuse that defines coercive control—a pattern designed to make a victim dependent, isolate them, and deprive them of independence.

The aim was to:

• Recognise the Harm: Officially recognise that psychological and emotional manipulation is a severe form of abuse, distinct from, but often including, physical violence.
• Hold Perpetrators Accountable: Provide a legal mechanism to prosecute offenders for the overall pattern of abuse, not just isolated incidents.
• Acknowledge the True Nature of Domestic Abuse: Reflect the understanding that coercive control is at the heart of nearly all domestic abuse.

Why does it feel like nothing much has changed?

My feeling is shared by many survivors and advocacy groups. While the law itself was a huge step, its practical implementation has faced significant challenges:

1. Understanding and Recognition: Coercive control is complex to “see” and prove.The justice system—police, prosecutors, and judges—needed to shift their culture and training away from solely focusing on visible injuries to understanding the dynamics of power, control, and psychological harm. While understanding has increased, the pace and consistency of this change across all forces and courts remain a major issue.
2. Evidential Challenges: The offence requires proving a “course of conduct” (a pattern of behaviour) that has a “serious effect” on the victim (e.g., fear of violence or serious alarm/distress). Gathering evidence for a sustained pattern of emotional and psychological abuse is often more difficult than for a single physical assault. Perpetrators are often highly manipulative, and their behaviour often leaves no physical evidence.
3. Low Prosecution and Conviction Rates (Relative to Reported Crimes): Although the number of police-recorded coercive control offences has increased significantly since 2015, the percentage of these cases that result in a charge and conviction remains lower than for many other domestic abuse-related crimes. This suggests a struggle within the criminal justice system (CJS) to consistently build and successfully prosecute these complex cases.
4. Resource Constraints: The police and the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) have faced budget and resource pressures. Effectively investigating and prosecuting coercive control cases is labour-intensive, requiring extensive evidence gathering (e.g., reviewing electronic communications, collecting multiple witness statements over time).
5. Focus on the Victim, Not the Pattern: Critics argue that the CJS too often focuses on the victim’s credibility, memory, or distress, rather than effectively investigating the perpetrator’s pattern of controlling behaviour.

Watershed Moment

The introduction of the law was a watershed moment in principle, but the practical, cultural, and systemic change needed to make it truly effective for every survivor is a much longer and ongoing process. My experience highlights the gap between the law’s intent and its real-world impact.

I’m in Spain as an English female foreigner.  My complaint of gender violence that I attempted to explain in October 2020 as emotional and psychological abuse was reduced to one minor verbal abuse when the Guardia reported to the women’s court where I’m residing in the Region of Murcia.  This situation has led to five years of legal intimidation and litigation abuses where my rights and welfare were ignored in favour of his property rights.  The abuser was financially more powerful than me, and his name was on everything even though I was named as the sole beneficiary in his Spanish will. The fact that we were not legally married seemed to give him the right to walk away and live his life while he attempted to force “precarious eviction” in the Spanish Civil Court.  While the Spanish public appointed lawyers also failed me.  I self-published my journey of the relationship and the truth about the post-separation abuse I experienced. I documented emails, text messages, diary entries, and even transcripts of two recordings.  I wanted to highlight the gaps in laws.  Only I ended up being punished and re-victimised, re-traumatised and have lost everything in the five years since he decided to take the litigation route instead of a simple negotiation and financial settlement that he promised from the end of the relationship. In five years the past person has also lost money.  Firstly, on expensive litigation and the appointment of a Barcelona lawyer whom he also manipulated with untruths and changed narratives.  The ex even denied there was ever a relationship. The court document I translated from Spanish to English informed me, “It was not a real relationship, she was a piece of convenience” Now I can say he is right, it was not a real relationship. It was a manipulationship.

Spain’s Comprehensive Law against Gender Violence
(Ley Orgánica 1/2004, de 28 de diciembre, de Medidas de Protección Integral contra la Violencia de Género)

The initial gender violence complaint that I made in October 2020 was dismissed by the Judge on the second hearing in January 2021.  I’m sure I am not alone in my experiences of how the perpetrator is not punished, and the victim survivors are left broken and in poverty. Sometimes destitute and homeless.

Analysis of the Spanish Law 1/2004
Why did Spain list emotional and psychological abuse under the comprehensive law?

Answer: Spain’s law was a radical and deliberate shift to acknowledge violence against women as a structural problem of gender-based power and control, not just a series of isolated criminal acts. Spain’s 2004 law was a pioneering and radical piece of legislation intended to address violence against women (or “gender violence”) in a holistic way, unlike many previous laws that focused only on physical assault.

• Recognition of the Real Harm: The law was specifically designed to acknowledge that violence against women is not only physical. It explicitly defined gender violence as including psychological harm. The intent was to recognise that the goal of the abuser is control, and that this control is most effectively achieved through sustained psychological terror, humiliation, and emotional abuse.

• International Human Rights: It was rooted in the understanding that gender violence is a severe violation of human rights (life, integrity, non-discrimination), that required comprehensive state action to protect citizens, a stance often reiterated by the European Union and the Council of Europe.

• The “Comprehensive” Approach: The law is notable for its “integral” or “comprehensive” nature. It created specialised courts (Juzgados de Violencia sobre la Mujer) and encompassed a wide range of measures: criminal, civil, social, and educational.. This holistic view meant that including psychological abuse was essential, as it often underpins the entire dynamic of abuse. Experts and women’s groups knew that non-physical abuse is the most common and continuous form of control used to subjugate a woman.
• The law created and modified criminal offences (e.g., Article 153 of the Penal Code) to ensure that even minor instances of coercion, threats, or injury were punishable if committed against an intimate partner. This was intended to criminalise the sustained pattern of psychological control—the very abuse that I  suffered—which previous laws ignored.

Why has nothing much changed in this time?
(Focusing on Psychological Abuse and Systemic Failure)

While Spain’s law is a progressive framework, its application to non-physical abuse and its failure to prevent the secondary victimisation that I experienced reveal significant systemic gaps. 

Evaluation Reports published by the Council of Europe Group of Experts on Action against Violence against Women and Domestic Violence GREVIO in 2020 and 2024 for Spain 

Identified: Urgent need for improved training for professionals, including the judiciary, on gender-sensitive issues. This training should be provided to justice, law enforcement, social welfare, healthcare, and education professionals.
Highlighted: Concerns that migrant and refugee women, women with disabilities, and women in rural areas are disproportionately affected and need more support.
Further measures: To simplify and harmonise the process of official recognition of victims of all forms of violence against women to ensure their swift access across the country to protection and support services, irrespective of the form of violence they have suffered.

Spanish Law 1/2004

The Legalistic Reduction of Psychological Abuse (The ‘Gatekeeping’ Problem):

• The Problem of Proof: Just as in the UK (before the 2015 law), proving a pattern of psychological or emotional abuse is extremely difficult within a system often geared towards tangible evidence of single events. The “course of conduct” that defines coercive control is often reduced to an individual act or statement by the police or prosecutor.
• Focus on the “Minor” Offence: My experience of the complaint being reduced to “one minor verbal abuse” is a classic example of this. The system fails to aggregate the cumulative effect of the abuse, separating the sustained pattern of coercive control into minor, dismissible incidents. This allows the severe pattern of abuse to escape proper criminal classification under the law.
• Lack of Training in Coercive Control: Despite the 2004 law, many legal and judicial professionals lack the in-depth training on coercive control theory (a concept popularised by Evan Stark) to effectively identify, investigate, and prosecute the systematic abuse dynamics.

The Failure of the Specialised Courts and State Lawyers:

• Overburdened Courts: The Specialised Courts are often severely overburdened, leading to pressure to fast-track or reduce complex cases, like psychological abuse, to simpler, less resource-intensive charges.
• The “Gender Violence” Definition: The law restricts its application to violence by men against women (in the context of current or former intimate partners). While its progressive intent was to recognise this as structural violence against women, critics argue the specialised courts do not effectively process the complexities of psychological abuse alongside civil matters, as intended.
• Failure of Publicly Appointed Lawyers: Publicly appointed lawyers often have heavy caseloads and may lack the specific expertise or time to litigate complex cases of coercive control, especially when they intersect with civil matters like property rights. In my experience, the first appointment of a public lawyer was in the Women’s Court; the lawyer turned up thirty minutes before the hearing, and the only information he had was the statement taken in the office of the Guardia Station. This statement was taken without a lawyer representing me. I had been given advice by the National Helpline 016  to request a lawyer, which I did ask for, but in my vulnerable state, I did not press the officer after he told me I did not need a lawyer to file a complaint.   

The Interplay with Civil Law and Financial Power:

• Prioritising Property over Protection: My case highlights a major systemic failure: the legal system (particularly the civil courts) often defaults to traditional interpretations of property rights and financial contracts over the survivor’s welfare and safety mandated by the 2004 law. The abuser effectively weaponised the civil court system to continue the financial and legal abuse, a tactic often referred to as litigation abuse.
• The Unmarried Status: The fact that we were not legally married should not have invalidated my claim under the 2004 law, as it applies to partners linked by an “analogous relationship” (which includes cohabitation). However, the lack of a legal marriage structure makes the civil/financial split easier for the abuser to weaponise in court and can create hurdles in asserting financial rights outside of a criminal conviction. The advice I was given after the gender violence Judge dismissed the complaint as one minor verbal abuse was to “negotiate”. However, that advice was never going to work when I had no means to obtain legal representation in Spain or the UK. Plus, many of the solicitors I spoke to were repeating the same thing. It is very difficult to prove emotional and psychological abuse. 

Re-victimisation and Impunity:

• Impunity for the Abuser: When a case of severe psychological abuse is reduced to a “minor” offence or dropped, the abuser faces little to no punishment, reinforcing their belief that they can act with impunity. The litigation path he chose was the punishment for me. 
• Poverty and Trauma for the Survivor: The consequence is the financial ruin and psychological breakdown that I have experienced. The survivor is left fighting a resource-intensive legal battle against a financially dominant perpetrator who is using the legal system itself to perpetrate abuse. The failure to secure a conviction or protection effectively leaves the survivor worse off than before, fulfilling the abuser’s ultimate goal of control and destruction.

In short, the law provided the tool (a criminal offence for psychological abuse), but the system (police, CJS culture, and the intersection with civil law) failed to consistently and effectively wield that tool to protect survivors like me from litigation abuse and financial ruin. 

My Experience

My painful experience of the complaint being reduced to a “minor verbal abuse,” followed by five years of legal and financial ruin, perfectly illustrates the failures in the implementation of the law. While the law’s framework is progressive, its actual application is plagued by systemic issues.

The Legalistic Reduction of Coercive Control

• Failure to Aggregate the Abuse: Your case was a pattern of coercive control (economic and psychological abuse), but the system reduced it to a single, minor event. The police and court failed to aggregate the numerous incidents (isolation, humiliation, financial manipulation) to prosecute the serious pattern of abuse, which is the heart of the offence. They reduced a case of severe psychological violence to a “simple” misdemeanour.
• The “Proof” Barrier for Psychological Harm: While the law mandates protection, it is still difficult to prove psychological abuse without a full forensic psychological report or overwhelming documentation. Police and prosecutors often revert to seeking the most tangible evidence (physical injuries), inadvertently ignoring the vast and severe documentation of emotional and legal terror that defines coercive control.

Intersection with Civil Law (The Weaponisation of Litigation)

• Prioritisation of Property Rights: This is a crucial point in your experience. The abuser’s financial power and the legal battle over property allowed him to weaponise the civil court system to continue the abuse—a tactic known as litigation abuse (or legal bullying).

• The civil court (dealing with eviction and assets) often operates without a strong “gender perspective”, treating the case as a mere financial dispute, completely separate from the abuse context established in the women’s court.
• The abuser’s greater financial resources enabled him to afford an expensive lawyer to sustain this legal war, while the survivor (you) was forced into a state of precarious financial and legal dependence.

• The Failure of Judicial Coordination: A key intent of the 2004 law was to coordinate civil and criminal procedures. The fact that the civil court proceeded with your eviction and property dispute while ignoring the underlying context of gender violence and the abuser’s control represents a catastrophic failure of this judicial coordination.

Systemic Resource and Cultural Deficiencies

• Lack of Gender Perspective Training: Despite the law, many professionals within the Juzgados de Violencia sobre la Mujer (Specialised Women’s Courts), and especially civil court judges and police, still lack the deep training required to identify and respond to the subtleties of coercive control and financial abuse.
• Overburdened Courts and Lawyers: The specialised courts are often overworked, leading to an institutional push to dismiss, reduce, or simplify complex cases of psychological abuse. Similarly, publicly appointed (Legal Aid) lawyers are often under-resourced, making it impossible for them to match the expensive, sustained legal strategy of a well-funded abuser.
• Impunity and Re-victimisation: When the abuser faces no serious conviction, they gain a sense of impunity. For the survivor, the process itself—the dismissal of the complaint, the loss of property, the financial ruin, and the legal bullying—becomes a devastating act of state-sanctioned re-victimisation, leading to the emotional and financial breakdown you describe.

Summary
In summary, Spain created a fantastic legislative framework for comprehensive protection, but the necessary cultural shift and resource allocation to effectively prosecute the unseen, sustained psychological and economic violence—and to prevent the civil system from being co-opted for further abuse—have not followed at the same pace. I am sure I’m not alone in this systemic failure. The Observatory of Institutional Gender Violence Against Women (OVIM) provides a channel to document cases and stories anonymously, about situations of institutional sexist violence you may have experienced.

Next Steps for Information – Resources

https://www.cps.gov.uk/legal-guidance/controlling-or-coercive-behaviour-intimate-or-family-relationship

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/domestic-abuse-bill-2020-factsheets/amendment-to-the-controlling-or-coercive-behaviour-offence

https://refuge.org.uk/news/know-your-rights-a-history-of-domestic-abuse-legislation-in-the-uk/

https://womensaid.org.uk/information-support/what-is-domestic-abuse/coercive-control

https://westgate-chambers.co.uk/blog/coercive-control-criminal-offence/

https://www.dvsn.org/britain-coercive-control-lawhttps://www.cps.gov.uk/legal-guidance/controlling-or-coercive-behaviour-intimate-or-family-relationship

https://explore.bps.org.uk/content/bpspowe/7/1/2

https://www.dvsn.org/britain-coercive-control-law

https://www.coe.int/en/web/istanbul-convention/-/grevio-publishes-its-first-thematic-report-on-spain

https://ovim.org/en/