Academics from the Violence & Society research centre echo Holly Newton’s parents call for domestic abuse policy reform to better protect teens.

By Eve Lacroix (Senior Communications Officer), Published (Updated )

Inadequate legislation means teens experiencing domestic abuse are falling between the gaps, according to Dr Ruth Weir, Senior Research Fellow in Criminology at City St George’s, University of London.

Her work includes a review on lowering the age in the Domestic Abuse Act, as called for by the parents of the late Holly Newton, a teen girl who was murdered by her boyfriend.

Yesterday in Prime Minsters Questions, Joe Morris MP reiterated the question to the Prime Minister and Home Secretary on whether they would  “look urgently at the calls from Holly’s mother Micala Trussler to lower the age that a person can be recognised as a victim of domestic abuse”.

Victims experiencing domestic abuse that are under the age of 16 do not qualify for adult domestic abuse support.

While they may be able to receive child protection support, Dr Weir argues that the criminal justice system is not effectively capturing the number of victims aged under 16, nor intervening, meaning these victims fall between the cracks.

Under current laws, both abuser and the victim must be over 16 for it to be considered a domestic abuse crime, which in 2024, Secretary of State Yvette Cooper MP said she would review.

At the start of this year, colleagues from across the Violence & Society research centre published a rapid systematic review into the topic.

Recognising domestic abuse and coercive behaviour in teen relationships

Holly’s parents have spoken publicly about the difficulty in recognising coercive behaviour in their daughter’s relationship. Dr Weir said:

Coercive control has only been recognised in law for less than a decade so both adults and young people need to learn to recognise the signs.

If the legal system doesn’t recognise domestic abuse within teenage relationships, it is likely young people will be less likely to as well.

15-year-old Holly dated 16-year-old Logan MacPhail for a year and a half after meeting him at Army Cadets.

Towards the end of their relationship, he became increasingly controlling, wanting to know what she was doing and where she was at all times, and owning her social media passwords.

When Holly tried to end the relationship, Logan stalked and murdered her. Following a six-week trial at Newcastle Crown Court, he was found guilty of murder and grievous bodily harm and will be detained for at least 17 years.

Why data capture is data justice

Gaps in the data means that there might be a significantly higher number of teens experiencing domestic abuse than is currently recorded. Without these numbers, it is impossible for the government to allocate enough funds and resources to tackle the problem.

Explaining the flaws in the system, Dr Weir explained:

The current definition of domestic abuse leaves those in teenage relationships falling into the gap between child protection procedures and adult-focused domestic abuse policy.

Teens experiencing abusive behaviour from a partner begins at age 14 or 15 on average, according to data from SafeLives.

The Domestic Abuse Act 2021 recognised children who live in a home where domestic abuse takes place as victims in their own right, but this did not extend to children experiencing abuse in their own relationships.

This means there is a gap in data, recognition and support for those experiencing domestic abuse in their relationships under the age of 16.

Dr Weir and colleague from across the Violence, Health and Society (VISION) consortium established the Adolescent Domestic Abuse Working Group (ADAWG).

The forum brings together government bodies, specialist services, police constabularies, parents, teachers, and researchers to assess current government policy into adolescent domestic abuse.

The review included participatory research with young people and found a wholesale change is needed to properly intervene, reduce and prevent adolescent domestic abuse.

The working group is collaborating with Thames Valley Police (TVP), the Domestic Abuse Commissioner’s (DAC) office, the Home Office and the charity SafeLives (the charity dedicated to ending domestic abuse).

Societal issues at play: the normalisation of sexual violence

Deputy Chief Constable Katy Barrow-Grint is also co-author of Policing Domestic Abuse and a Practitioner in Residence at the School of Policy & Global Affairs.

Speaking to Fabulous Magazine (The Sun), she described the larger societal issues at play:

As a society, we need to ask: ‘Where do we want to go with this? What are we doing in education? What are we doing in social care? What can parents do?’

There are young people today who see things such as strangulation in relationships as normal.

They are learning about relationships from the internet, and watching sexual violence at a much younger age, and seeing this as normal in their own relationships.

Knives in intimate partner violence

Holly’s parents set up Holly’s Hope in her memory, a nonprofit aimed at raising money and installing lifesaving 'Bleed Boxes', which aims to help fellow victims of knife crime.

Research co-authored by Dr Elizabeth Cook, Senior Lecturer in Sociology and Criminology in the Violence & Society Research Centre found that while there is a preconception that knife crime only happens outside of intimate relationships, this is an inaccurate assumption.

Knives are consistently the most frequent method of killing in the context of intimate partner violence by men against women. It stands that when women are killed by men, they are most likely killed using a knife.