Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many complaints the police in England and Wales have received in relation to the offence of coercive control; how many complaints have resulted in the accused being charged; how many charges have resulted in a prosecution; how many prosecutions have resulted in a conviction; and how many people convicted have been given custodial sentences in each year since 2015.

Engaging in controlling/coercive behaviour in an intimate / family relationship became a notifiable offence on 29 December 2015. As such, data has only been published for two complete financial years (2016/17 and 2017/18). Additionally, not all police forces have been able to supply data against this new offence.

Of the 42 police forces for which data were available, 9,052 offences of coercive control were reported to and recorded by the police in England and Wales in the year ending March 2018. Data for the previous year showed that 38 forces for which data are available showed that there were 4,246 reported and recorded coercive control offences. These statistics are victim-based.
Figures for prosecutions, convictions and custodial sentences for the offence of engaging in controlling or coercive behaviour are available by selecting it in the ‘offence’ field from the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) published data here:

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/733981/outcomes-by-offence-tool-2017-update.xlsx

The MoJ statistics are based on defendants prosecuted in each time period and may relate to crimes recorded by the police in a previous reporting period due to the time-lag between cases being initially recorded by the police and then brought before the courts.