Controlling or Coercive Behaviour: Sentencing

Richard Quigley Excerpts

Monday 19th October 2026 Westminster Hall

[Richard Quigley (Isle of Wight West) (Lab)]

It is a momentous pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Mundell. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for North Ayrshire and Arran (Irene Campbell) for introducing this vital petition. Like everyone else, I sincerely thank Paris Shears for her extraordinary bravery in turning her harrowing experience into an opportunity for positive change, helping to ensure that no other victim goes through her experience.

Like many others, I always hope to see the best in people. I want to believe that our prison system can deliver meaningful rehabilitation and help to break cycles of offending, but rehabilitation can never come at the expense of victim safety. On this issue, I fear that we are giving offenders, who have already shown themselves to be manipulative and callous towards those they profess to love, additional opportunities to continue facilitating abuse and exerting control, even when arrests have been made and court proceedings are under way.

How can it be right that a perpetrator is able to weaponise our justice system, drag victims back through repeated hearings, waste precious court time and inflict further trauma, only to be rewarded with a reduced sentence? That does not strengthen confidence in the justice system; it undermines it, makes it a mockery of justice and validates the concerns of many survivors who already feel that the system works better for perpetrators than those they have harmed.

On the Isle of Wight, we are fortunate enough to have an exceptional women’s refuge via Paragon. Despite operating with limited resources and facilities, they are providing valuable support to some of the most vulnerable people in our community. They have told me directly about the devastating impact that these sentencing decisions can have on victims, many of whom feel let down by a system that is supposed to protect them. One survivor said:

“It takes an enormous amount of personal courage, extensive evidence gathering, and significant public resource just to get a coercive control case into court. To fight through all of that, only to see the perpetrator receive a discounted sentence, completely minimises those efforts and feels like an insult to the survivors who fought so hard to be heard.

Coercive control is rarely an isolated incident, it is an insidious, cumulative pattern of abuse that dismantles someone’s life over years. In my view, the psychological and emotional harm stays with a survivor for life. Giving a sentence reduction treats it like a minor transactional offence traded away for court efficiency, rather than acknowledging the lifelong damage left behind.”

That fear is only heightened on the Isle of Wight, where our geographical containment brings serious safety risk. Short custodial sentences mean that perpetrators are back out into the immediate community far too soon, leaving victims constantly terrified of bumping into them. They also drastically compress the time available to put essential post-release safety plans—housing arrangements or non-molestation orders or injunctions—into place.

I acknowledge the important steps this Government have already taken to put victims at the heart of our justice system, both on the Isle of Wight and across the country. Removal of the presumption of parental involvement, and the introduction of the pathfinder court on the island, are significant reforms that will make a real difference to many families. But, as always, it is the solemn responsibility of our Labour Government to be ambitious and precise about what more we can do.

If we are serious about placing victims at the centre of decision making, we must listen when they tell us that the current approach to late guilty pleas is not working. Too many victims see perpetrators delay proceedings, prolong their trauma and then benefit from a reduced sentence at the very last moment. We owe it to victims, survivors and those at risk to make this change.