The physical abuse was criminal. Sarah’s isolation and humiliation weren’t. That now changes

Advocates favour the change but are nervous about how the law will work in practice.Much will depend on whether victims are willing to speak up.Sarah* is smart, attractive and educated. She earns good money, comes from a loving family, and has close, supportive friends.

Jayke*, a trans man and social worker who is on the government’s lived expertise reference group on coercive control, used to be one of them. His former partner would trash the house when he went out, so he stopped doing it; she’d secretly use his account to send nasty messages to his friends, leaving him wondering why they fell out of contact; and she’d cast him as hopeless and lazy to his children .

There was much debate over how to cast the NSW legislation. Lawmakers settled on a law that only applies to adult intimate partners . Prosecutors must prove the offender engaged in the conduct repeatedly, and that the behaviour was abusive . Crucially, and controversially, they must prove the offender“Motivation can be really tricky to demonstrate when you are talking about coercive control,” says Hayley Boxall, a leading domestic violence researcher from the Australian National University.

Another hurdle is the public’s lack of understanding of non-physical abuse. Sometimes it takes months or years for a victim to realise what happened. “It’s a bit like the frog in boiling water,” says Sarah. “It’s a slow, gradual kind of build-up, and then you find yourself immersed in it. For so long I defined by physical violence, without recognising all those other things.”

Snell expects the first impact to be seen in applications for apprehended domestic violence orders. “There may be more ADVOs on the basis of coercive control, we would encourage people to report to police,” she says.Herald

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