Coercive control cases in the Court of Protection

HBCC v LG [2010] EWHC 1527 (Fam)

A 96-year-old woman with dementia was repeatedly returned to her daughter's care despite recurring injuries, including a serious leg wound the daughter (a former nurse) had treated herself rather than seeking medical help, and a later incident where police found the mother locked in the house, banging on a window for help.

Each safeguarding referral was followed by reassurance that the situation was being monitored, until a final serious assault led to a Court of Protection application. At a fact-finding hearing, the court held proven a pattern of physical abuse, verbal abuse, and controlling behaviour, rejecting the daughter's evidence (given partly in an unexplained accent and including unfounded conspiracy allegations) as not credible.

The court ruled it was in the mother’s best interests to remain permanently in a care home, with supervised contact only, and directed the daughter be excluded from managing her mother's finances. The case illustrates how repeated, individually minor red flags can be underestimated, until a fact-finding hearing finally draws them together into a proven pattern.

WU v BU [2021] EWCOP 54

A wealthy 70-year-old woman Ms BU had vascular dementia. She was befriended, then financially exploited, by Mr NC who had convictions for blackmail. He moved into her home, controlled her diet, and arranged for her will to be altered in his favour.

A court-instructed psychologist described the relationship as a trauma bond, finding Ms BU had become so psychologically enmeshed with Mr NC that she was unable to distinguish good decisions from harmful ones, and diagnosed a pattern consistent with coercive financial abuse under the Serious Crime Act 2015.

Mr NC’s position was that Ms BU had capacity and that her family were the ones interfering. This was an example of the dynamic called “gaslighting”.

The court found Ms BU lacked capacity regarding contact with Mr NC, made a no-contact order with a supporting injunction, and granted a time-limited forced marriage protection order. The judgment is one of the most detailed judicial explorations of trauma bonding and undue influence in a Court of Protection case involving an older adult with no prior family connection to the abuser.

MB v PB [2022] EWCOP 14

Unusually, it was the husband (not the local authority) who applied to court seeking more contact with his wife after she suffered a severe brain haemorrhage and was moved to a care home. Safeguarding concerns had already been raised about his conduct toward staff, including inappropriate touching of his wife and a combative, obstructive approach to her carers.

The court had previously restricted his contact by injunction, and a fact-finding hearing established a sustained pattern of controlling and coercive behaviour both before and after her admission, including isolating her from her adult children and preventing contact with her sister.

The judge noted a dynamic common to these cases: the husband could not recognise his own role in the breakdown of family relationships, attributing blame entirely elsewhere. The case is a useful example of coercive control surfacing in an application brought by the alleged controlling person themselves, and of the court using injunctive relief to protect a person's existing care arrangements from active interference.

Hull City Council v KF [2022] EWCOP 33

A 34-year-old woman with learning disabilities and terminal cancer wanted a final private meeting with her abusive partner, who had been violent and sexually coercive toward her and was shortly to be sentenced for assault against her. The court had to decide whether she had capacity to consent to contact and to sexual relations with him specifically.

The judge said that someone who lacks capacity to decide on contact with a particular person cannot simultaneously have capacity to consent to sexual relations with that same person, since intimacy is itself a form of contact: this means any sexual activity during unsupervised time would be rape.

Given her terminal prognosis and his history of violence, the court found she lacked capacity on both questions. But balancing her clearly expressed wishes against the practical impossibility of safely supervising a private visit, the judge permitted a single supervised final meeting where the couple could embrace, recognising it was likely to be their last contact before she died.

A Local Authority v KP & another [2023] EWHC 3102 (Fam)

An 18-year-old woman with autism and learning disabilities lived with her mother and her mother's partner, a registered sex offender who may have previously assaulted her.

The court found he was the dominant figure in the household, able to shape how both mother and daughter saw the world, and that the young woman was unable to engage with the idea that he posed a risk to her. Rather than removing her from the home (which she wanted to stay in, and previous attempts to keep her away had failed) the court ordered that a social worker should meet her alone each week to check on her safety and wellbeing.

Two days after the hearing, she independently chose to leave and move in with her boyfriend's family, where she made disclosures suggesting the stepfather may have been grooming her. The case illustrates how the court can build in ongoing protective contact rather than forcing an immediate, possibly unsustainable, separation — and shows that creating safe opportunities for disclosure can succeed where removal has previously failed.