Criminalising Coercive Control: Challenges for the Implementation of Northern Ireland’s Domestic Abuse Offence

Drawing on experiences from the other jurisdictions within the UK, Criminalising Coercive Control explores the challenges and potential successes which may be faced in implementing Northern Ireland’s new domestic abuse offence.

Vanessa Bettinson is Professor of Criminal Law and Criminal Justice at De Montfort University, Leicester, UK. She researches coercive control in criminal law and is particularly interested in the creation and implementation of coercive control offences and embedding coercive control understandings within defence frameworks.

Ronagh McQuigg is a reader in the School of Law, Queen’s University Belfast, UK. She holds an LLB with First Class Honours, an LLM with Distinction and a PhD, and she is a qualified solicitor. Her research interests focus in particular on domestic abuse, and she teaches in the areas of family law and property law.