Written by Kimberley Starosta, LLM

The Crime Survey for England and Wales estimated that 2.2 million females (9.1%) and 1.5 million males (6.5%) experienced domestic abuse in the last year. This is nearly one in every ten women and one in every twenty men. Domestic abuse surrounds all of us in one way or another, whether it be a family member, a colleague, a friend, or maybe you have experienced it yourself. This is why it is so important to understand what it is so that we can identify it and prevent it from going further.  

The Domestic Abuse Act 2021 defines domestic abuse as “abusive behaviour between two people aged 16 years or above that are personally connected to each other, regardless of whether the behaviour consists of a single incident or a course of conduct”. This, by itself, doesn’t tell us much about what it actually is. So let’s break it up into the main elements.  

What does being personally connected mean?

The Domestic Abuse Act 2021 says that if any of these apply then the couple in question are personally connected: if they are, or have been, married or in a civil partnership, if they have agreed to marry one another or enter into a civil partnership (whether or not the agreement has been terminated), if they are, or have been, in an intimate personal relationship with each other, or if they are related. This is pretty easy to understand and is what you might imagine when domestic abuse is mentioned.

What is abusive behaviour?

Well, it actually encompasses a very large range of behaviours. I have listed some of them below, along with common examples for each.

Physical Abuse:

• Hitting, kicking, pushing, shoving, pinching.
• Smashing objects in their close vicinity.
• Breaking their personal items.
• Behaving in a way that makes them feel afraid of being harmed.
• Strangling or suffocating.
• Even hurting a pet.

Sexual Abuse:

• Forcing them to have sex.
• Forcing them to watch pornography.
• Behaving inappropriately in front of children.
• Hurting or harming them during sex.
• Degrading actions/language during or linked to sex.
• Withholding physical affection as a form of control.
• Disallowing the use of contraception.
• Strangulation during sex.
• Coercion/manipulation relating to sex.

Emotional Abuse:

• Gaslighting.
• Belittling/humiliating behaviour.
• Name calling/shouting.
• Withholding affection/sulking/ignoring them.
• Playing mind games or lying to them.
• Mood swings.
• Threatening to share intimate images.
• Using the court system to threaten them.
• Using their child/relationship with child to control or threaten them.
• Being made to feel guilty.

Intimidation/harassment:

• Throwing objects.
• Damaging things at home.
• Threatening harm, including children.
• Threatening to harm themselves.
• Generating fear by actions or body language.
• Turning up unexpectedly, e.g. at the workplace.
• Using children to get at them or generate fear.
• Using technology to stalk or follow them.
• Pressuring them to give up a job/make working difficult for them.
• Calling/messaging constantly.
• Being angry at them if they do not answer the phone.
• Controlling daily routines.
• Tracking movements, social media, emails, texts.

Financial Abuse:

• Reducing or taking away financial independence.
• Controlling finances.
• Forcing expenditure/debt.
• Generating guilty feelings about affordable spending.

Cultural/Ethnic Abuse:

• So-called ‘honour’ violence.
• Threats to ostracise them from the community, or from their place of worship.
• Involvement of community elders or extended family.
• Female Genital Mutilation.
• Forced marriage.

Identity Abuse:

• Threats to ‘out’ their sexual or gender identity. 
• Using sexuality or gender to belittle.

Immigration Abuse:

• Threats about deportation.
• Financial control linked to the participant’s recourse to public funds.
• Using immigration status to keep someone in a relationship.

Isolation:

• Stopping someone from seeing family or friends or making it harder to see them.
• Moving away.
• Locking them in the house.
• Being manipulated to stay home.
• Manipulating loss of job.

This is by no means an exhaustive list of abusive behaviours, but it gives you a good idea of the types of behaviours that can be categorised as abusive.

To conclude, domestic abuse is where there is abusive behaviour between two people above the age of 16, who are personally connected. This can include a pattern of behaviours or a one-off incident. It can arise in a multitude of situations, and I hope this article has given a bit of insight into what the law has defined as domestic abuse.