Controlling or Coercive Behaviour: Sentencing

Liz Jarvis Excerpts

Monday 19th October 2026 Westminster Hall

[Liz Jarvis (Eastleigh) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Mundell. I thank the Petitions Committee for scheduling this important debate, and I thank my constituents who signed the petition. Above all, I thank my constituent Paris Shears, who is in the Gallery today and is the reason we are all present in this Chamber this afternoon. It has been a privilege to support Paris as she has brought this campaign forward. She has taken the worst experience of her life and has turned it into a fight to change the law so that no other victim has to go through what she did. I am incredibly proud to be her Member of Parliament and to speak on her behalf today.

I would like to start by saying a little more about what happened to Paris, because her story is the reason the petition exists. Paris’s ex-partner was charged with several offences, including intentional strangulation and controlling and coercive behaviour, to which he pleaded not guilty. For over 530 days, Paris prepared to stand in court and relive what had happened to her, carrying the fear of giving evidence, of facing her former partner and of not being believed.

On the morning of the trial, the defendant changed his plea. For that, he was given a reduced sentence for sparing Paris the ordeal of a trial, despite what he had already put her through. When Paris heard the sentence, she fell to her knees and curled up in a ball crying. As she puts it:

“He got handed a suspended sentence. I am still living with a life sentence.”

No one should ever have to say that about our criminal justice system. It is completely unacceptable that a defendant can continue their cycle of abuse and still be rewarded with a reduced sentence for changing their plea at the last possible moment.

Guilty pleas exist for a reason: to spare victims the ordeal of a trial. A plea entered on the day of the trial spares them nothing. This matters especially in cases of coercive control, because this particularly insidious form of abuse is about power. It is about trying to control every aspect of another person’s life. When a defendant pleads not guilty and then holds out until the morning of the trial, that control carries on—only now it is exercised through the courts. Paris’s law would stop this.

Although it is welcome that some domestic abuse crimes have been excluded from the early release scheme, that does not go far enough. Domestic abuse does not end when an offender is convicted, and an offender’s release can be one of the most dangerous periods that a survivor will face. Our police forces, probation services, courts and specialist domestic abuse organisations are already struggling to monitor perpetrators of abuse and breaches of release. Releasing more domestic abuse offenders early will only place even greater pressure on a system that is already failing to cope.

I would be grateful if the Minister could clarify how many domestic abuse offenders the Government expect to be released under the early release scheme. If the Government get this wrong, survivors will pay the price. They and their families may be forced to abandon their homes, their children’s schools, their jobs and their support networks, which will plunge domestic abuse services and refuges into even greater demand. Domestic abuse is one of the most despicable crimes, and those convicted of these offences should not be eligible for early release.

We understand why our prisons are full. Years of neglect and mismanagement under the previous Conservative Government let the court backlog spiral and left victims waiting unacceptably long for justice. However, the answer to tackling the crisis of overcrowding cannot be solved by transferring the risk from prisons directly into the homes and communities of survivors. Violence against women and girls is a national emergency. With one in four women having experienced domestic abuse, and with a woman being killed by a man every three days in the UK, greater action is needed to tackle this epidemic.

Last December, the Government published a strategy with the aim of halving violence against women and girls within a decade. This is absolutely a welcome ambition, but that ambition must be matched by practical steps. Paris’s law is exactly the kind of practical step that the target demands. Young people of all ages must be taught what a healthy relationship looks like, what controlling behaviour is and how to report problems at home. Paris told me that she believes that if she had received education like that, much of her trauma could have been avoided. The best way to help protect future women from coercive and controlling relationships is to make sure that they are able to recognise the warning signs early on.

Paris has been brave enough to tell her story and fight for a change in the law. It is now time for action. I urge the Minister to back Paris’s law and make sure that no survivors of coercive control suffer the same injustice that the current gap in our judicial system allows.