I was intrigued to understand and read more about this from a level-headed, non-dramatised perspective.

These things can happen in a normal relationship but if you’ve got someone with a history of control who is then going very fast, you’ve got loads of flags.In her new book, In Control: Dangerous Relationships and How They End in Murder, she lays out the eight stages of a domestic homicide timeline that flag up the potential for the coercively controlling to kill. This is a step-by-step guide to help you understand the eight different stages people pass through, men and women, in a controlling relationship.

This is an amazing book in which Jane Monckton Smith details the stages of coersive control and domestic abuse and is the new textbook on abusive relationships.

Reading the book I agree with everything the author says and was impressed by her knowledge, insight and empathy.

The book focuses on improving understanding of why victims behave in ways that can seem strange to the everyday person — why don’t they just leave?

If lawyers and judges had more knowledge about how domestic abuse works that would then become part of the adversarial arguments.

Chapter six examines a change in thinking, which can help us to recognise signs of perpetrators planning to kill. Knowing about and being able to recognize the patterns of coercive control can be life-changing (or in the worst case life-saving) not only for professionals but for relatives, friends, coworkers of victims or even strangers they interact with. obviously, this book deals with some heavy subject matter and because Monckton-Smith uses real life examples this book definitely comes with some trigger warnings, including domestic violence, rape, murder, forced pregnancy, child abuse, emotional blackmail and manipulation, gaslighting and stalking. I try not to generalise and I was uncomfortable initially with the author's use of statements such as "women are", "men do this", etc.But I think in the eight stages, if the very first stage is somebody with a history, we’re saying they’re a type. Professor Jane Monkton Smith isnt simply an academic it's very clear that she has a deep understanding of the system and its flaws. After a murder the attention usually goes to the perpetrator and it is surprising how revealing it is to look at a crime from a different perspective. she just provides answers as to how to recognize and stop these crimes before they become homicides. The patterns of behaviour and variety of approaching are just astounding - it is no surprise that the justice system struggles to keep up with this area of the law.