In Control: Dangerous Relationships and How They End in Murder

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She believes these type of killers meticulously plan their murders, even putting together toolkits and maps and sometimes even sharing plans with unsuspecting friends. She said: “It can be one of the final signs leading up to a homicide. People should never ignore comments from someone saying they’d like to do this or that to their wife or partner.

He lost control, people say after another woman is killed. He just snapped, they say after another wife, partner, or girlfriend dies because of male violence.You mention that many murders go unrecognised. Do you have any idea what kind of percentage of domestic murders in the UK that amounts to? It then took another 2 months for the case to come to court. He was convicted on 3 counts of Assault (me, her and their 9 year old daughter). He was sentenced to 6 months on each charge (the maximum). However, to be served concurrently and therefore, with standard procedures) he served 13 weeks in prison. When he was released (which we could not be told when as it would breach his data protection rights) she was terrified to go out in her home town. We are no longer an item (other reasons but this didn’t help) but I am still very concerned that something else could happen. It's important to be able to read the signs and see what could be brewing in a relationship. Having this knowledge will help you understand people, the ways control works and will help you be able to spot coercive or dangerous domestic situations, a skill you hopefully will never need, but is good to know nonetheless.

There is a domestic violence epidemic happening right now, yet as a society we still turn a blind eye to it. In a culture that has normalised misogyny, we determinedly cling to the belief that domestic violence is a private matter in which both parties bear some responsibility. Even our legal system legitimises the idea that people who hurt or kill their partners have snapped and lost control, committed a ‘crime of passion’. You refer to stage two as the “commitment whirlwind”. Many romantic tropes like “love at first sight” underpin this idea. How can we distinguish love from danger? The best way to describe this book is that if domestic abuse and coercive control had never touched my life, this book would be able to educate me about these patterns. Police have proposed that coercive control legislation could be used more frequently to hold perpetrators to account for domestic abuse related suicides. However, the maximum penalty for a coercive control offence is only five years. In August 2018, mother of three Kellie Sutton, 30, attempted to take her own life and died three days later. Her partner, Steven Gane, 31, was subsequently convicted of controlling and coercive behaviour, actual bodily harm and assault. Judge Philip Grey said: “Your behaviour drove Kellie Sutton to hang herself … you beat her and ground her down and broke her spirits.” Gane was jailed for a mere four years and three months. I didn’t see the young woman again but I never forgot her. The question I asked my sergeant has haunted me ever since. I wanted an answer to that question.

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In 2006, the first attempt to convict a perpetrator of contributing to his wife’s suicide failed. Harcharran Dhaliwal was accused of the manslaughter of his wife, Gurjit, 45, and inflicting grievous bodily harm on her. She had documented numerous incidents of physical and psychological abuse. “How can there be so much evidence and yet no punishment for taking my sister’s life?” asked Nav Jagpal, Gurjit’s brother. We could double it certainly. If you start bringing in suicides, you could probably multiply it by five, six or seven times. If we’ve got a serial killer they’re given a huge amount of forensic attention, as are terrorists. Why not domestic killers? Why have we still got that really low status? Police officers are not rushing into the domestic abuse department. It’s not got that cachet. And yet that’s where they are most likely to come across killers. Reading real life interviews of these families make these women more than statistics and the murderous men who kill them to be seen as controlling rather than the victims. Their lawyer will argue it’s been a mercy killing but with the proper training, a judge should disregard that because they have recognised the history of control and impose the appropriate sentence.”

A pill overdose may be put down to someone who is depressed or suffering mental health issues, and a manipulative abuser will make a big thing of that, victim blaming, maybe to cover up forced ingestion. Judge Bury continued: “It is clear the family blame you for her death and her mental health had deteriorated since the last assault and they may well be right, but you have not been charged in a way that allows you to be blamed for her death.” Holiday was sentenced to two and a half years. He will be out in half that time. The recorded number of women killed by an intimate partner is high, yet the real number will be even higher as many are left unreported. As we understand it, the research works out of a dataset of 400 homicides. We discern a pattern in these data. One question might whether or not these homicides encompass a representative sample (or even the universe within some time frame) of homicides involving people engaged in important domestic relationships. There may be a host of homicides that unfold in a manner distinct from the eight-stage hypothesis. That’s one point. Another matter would involve looking at a representative sample domestic relationships. Does the pattern bear out in some share of these other relationships — absent “stage eight” homicide? How many relationships carry on indefinitely in some intermediate stage? The common tactic used to criminalise men has been to erode the presumption of innocence. Re-define actual harm to implied hurt feelings and alter the test of guilt from “beyond reasonable doubt” to “on the balance of probabilities” (Also known as the 50/50 test).The hardest part, after reading this book, is knowing how to effectively intervene – from legal or personal perspectives. There are no satisfactory, and definitely no short-term, answers. There is such a long way to go.