Controlling or Coercive Behaviour: Sentencing

Amanda Martin Excerpts

Monday 19th October 2026 Westminster Hall

[Amanda Martin (Portsmouth North) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Mundell. I thank everyone who signed the petition and those who had the courage to speak out about their experiences. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for North Ayrshire and Arran (Irene Campbell) for her clear and eloquent introduction to the debate, and I thank Paris Shears, who created the petition and has been brave in standing up to this crime. I also thank all the victims and their families who have put their trust in me and my team and have come into my office to seek support for cases involving domestic abuse and coercive control.

I want to use my time today to talk about two young women who are no longer here. As the Member for Portsmouth North, I have met and supported the families of Chloe Holland and Skye Nicholls. I have listened to their grief and their determination to ensure that what happened to their loved ones leads to change. Their experience brings me to the central question of this debate: is it right that someone who maintains a not guilty plea and changes it at the last minute can still receive a reduction in their sentence for controlling or coercive behaviour? I believe that that is not right, and that it needs to change.

I understand why the law rewards an early guilty plea—it can spare victims the ordeal of a trial and can allow cases to conclude sooner—but there is a profound difference between accepting responsibility at the earliest opportunity and waiting until the eve of the trial before admitting guilt, because we must ask ourselves who pays the price for that delay. It is the victims and their families. They wait; they worry; they prepare themselves to hear painful evidence and face the prospect of a trial. They live with uncertainty about whether they will get even get answers—and they are still being controlled. Sometimes, at the last moment, a defendant changes their plea. The trial may no longer be necessary, but the months of distress are not erased. The victims, and in Chloe and Skye’s cases their friends and family, cannot simply switch off their fear, their exhaustion or their grief.

In a case involving coercive control, we must consider something particularly important: the impact of one person continuing to determine the terms on which others experience the criminal justice process. As we have heard today, coercive control is about power, intimidation and the erosion of another person’s independence. We must be careful not to assume that every late plea is intended to exert control, but we must recognise that the consequence of delay can be victims and bereaved families and friends feeling that control has once again been taken out of their hands. A last-minute guilty plea may save the court time, but it does not give the victim or their family back the time, the peace or the certainty that they have lost.

Current sentencing guidance reduces the maximum credit available if a plea comes later in proceedings, but I question whether that is enough in the case of controlling or coercive behaviour. I ask the Minister to consider whether legislation should prevent sentence reductions for late guilty pleas in these cases, particularly when a defendant has maintained a not guilty plea before or throughout a trial, for all the reasons that my colleagues have outlined so eloquently today.

I will explain why this issue matters by speaking about Chloe Holland and Skye Nicholls. Chloe was just 23 when she died in 2023. She left behind a young son and a family who must live with her absence every single day. Her former partner pleaded guilty to controlling or coercive behaviour, but was sentenced to just three and a half years in prison. I have met Chloe’s family and they are living with a loss that no sentence can ever put right, yet they have also had to find strength to speak out, to ask difficult questions, and to fight for Chloe’s experiences to be recognised.

Chloe’s case reminds us that coercive control is not one argument or one incident; it is a sustained campaign that undermines confidence, isolates a person and strips away their sense of safety and their identity. I do not suggest that every death by suicide has a single cause, but where there are concerns about the relationship between sustained abuse and a death, those concerns must be examined carefully and the full circumstances properly understood by all involved. Chloe’s family deserve to know that the harm she experienced is not being reduced to a set of isolated incidents or lost behind the mechanics of a criminal process.

I have also met and supported the family and friends of Skye Nicholls. Skye was also 23 when she died in June 2023. Her former partner pleaded guilty to two counts of controlling or coercive behaviour. He was sentenced to two years and three months in prison in November 2025, but his sentence was subsequently reduced on appeal. Reports describe him engaging in verbal abuse, making threats of violence and sending deeply distressing messages, including telling Skye to take her own life.

Behind all those details are young women who should still be here with their family and friends but are not, and the lives of their family and friends have changed forever. Chloe and Skye’s cases are very different and I do not suggest that each case alone settles the question of late guilty pleas, but I have met both families and heard their concerns, and I have seen their determination to ensure that others do not suffer in the same way.

We cannot return Chloe and Skye to their loved ones, but we can refuse to let their families’ concerns go unanswered. The Labour Government have rightly committed to halving violence against women and girls over a decade, and I welcome the ambition and the work to achieve it that has already begun. We have a real opportunity to build on existing protections and to address the shortcomings that remain, including those left very much unresolved after 14 years of a Conservative Government.

That means recognising coercive control early, and ensuring that its cumulative harm is understood by professionals, from the police and social services to the Judicial College, the Sentencing Council, education and healthcare professionals, businesses and workplaces. It also means learning properly from all cases—and in the cases I have talked about, learning about the domestic abuse that has preceded the death—and examining whether our sentencing framework reflects the reality of what victims and their families experience.

I have three questions for the Minister. First, will the Government review whether late guilty pleas in controlling or coercive behaviour cases should attract any sentence reduction when a defendant has maintained a not guilty plea until very shortly before the trial? Secondly, how will the Government ensure that the distress caused by prolonged proceedings is properly considered, particularly for bereaved families and victims who are still alive, as they are still being controlled? Thirdly, will the Minister work with families and specialist organisations to ensure that lessons from domestic abuse-related deaths lead to practical changes in the way that abuse is recognised and addressed in our society?

There is a principle at stake here. The justice system must be fair. It must recognise that victims and their families are people and not participants in a process to be completed as efficiently as possible. An early guilty plea can spare additional suffering. A late guilty plea cannot undo the suffering that has already been endured. We must not confuse saving court time with delivering justice.

Chloe’s loved ones deserve to be heard. Skye’s loved ones deserve to be heard. Every family and victim living with the consequences of coercive control deserves a system that understands the harm, recognises their experience and treats their concerns with the seriousness they warrant. I urge the Government to look carefully at reforming sentence reductions for late guilty pleas, because when someone has already experienced the devastating consequences of coercive control, the criminal justice system must not leave those left behind feeling that they have once again been denied a voice, certainty or control.