
In 2020 the killing of Hannah Clarke and her three children – Aaliyah, 6, Laianah, 4, and Trey, 3 – by her former partner Rowan Baxter, horrified the nation. It prompted significant calls for urgent action on violence against women and improved recognition of coercive control as a leading precursor to intimate partner femicide.
Advocates, including Hannah Clarke’s parents, have campaigned for the introduction of coercive control as a stand-alone criminal offence.