When Calling for Help Leads to Handcuffs
Michelle sat shellshocked on her sofa, squinting through a black eye with blood seeping from her cut lip. She had just endured another violent assault from her abusive partner and had called 999, believing her ordeal was finally over. Instead, Michelle ended up in a police cell that night after her ex told officers she had hit him first.
The Counter-Allegation Tactic
This manipulative strategy, known as counter-allegation, is frequently employed by perpetrators of domestic abuse according to Nadia Hughes, head of criminal justice services at Advance, a charity supporting women harmed through domestic abuse and the criminal justice system. The ploy proves particularly effective when a woman has acted in self-defense or retaliated, leaving the perpetrator with visible injuries that police might misinterpret as signs of aggression rather than the culmination of years of abuse.
"Besides deflecting blame from the abuser, this tactic serves another crucial purpose," explains Hughes. "It's a really manipulative way to deter a survivor from calling 999 in the future. Once the counter-allegation strategy has been used once, police have a record suggesting this woman might be violent or abusive."
Hughes adds that this creates a dangerous cycle: "She's then less likely to report subsequent abuse because there is a growing distrust of statutory services like the police. Counter-allegations actually become a weaponized way of controlling that survivor. It is something we hear about frequently, unfortunately."
The Devastating Statistics
Approximately half of recent referrals to Advance, which operates at the intersection of domestic abuse and criminal justice, have stemmed from women being arrested due to counter-allegations. Research reveals that women are three times more likely to be arrested than their male partners during domestic abuse incidents involving both parties.
Michelle's experience illustrates this disturbing trend. She suffered years of abuse beginning when she was pregnant. "The second time he hit me was after my son was born and he was in my arms," she recalls. "That was horrific. My son had a white baby grow on and there was blood all over him where he broke my nose."
Her injuries escalated to include a broken leg and fractured collarbone when her ex pushed her from a fourth-floor window. "When you're in it you don't see how serious it is," she reflects. "You just know that you survived it."
The Final Incident
Looking back, Michelle cannot remember what triggered that final argument. When her ex began hitting her again, she instinctively threw her arms up to defend herself, accidentally catching his face with her elbow and giving him a bloodied nose. Despite being the one who called emergency services, she found herself arrested alongside him.
The consequences extended far beyond that night. Michelle lost her job as a family support worker after missing a key court hearing while in custody. "I sent myself to university when I was 30 trying to better my life," she says. "I got the job of my dreams, and it was taken."
Fatal Consequences
In the most extreme cases, counter-allegations can prove fatal. Twenty-one-year-old Bethany Rae Fields reported her ex Paul Crowther to police following threats he made against her, her friends, and family. Crowther responded by making multiple counter-allegations against Bethany.
Pauline, Bethany's mother, describes his actions as "despicable. She was tiny; 21 to his 35 years." Despite Crowther being reported to police seven times, despite being known to services after two former partners complained about harassment—with one resulting in a conviction—and despite telling mental health services he wanted revenge against Bethany, he was still invited to make a statement after reporting her to police.
He visited the station on September 12, 2019, to make a statement against her. That same day, he killed her. Pauline now urges police to remember Bethany's initials—BRF—and to "Believe. React. Fast," encouraging officers to consider whether the counter-allegation tactic is being employed.
Eroded Trust in Law Enforcement
For Jessica, the experience of being disbelieved by police has completely eroded her faith in law enforcement. "I don't believe they have listened to me once, or made me feel safe," she states. Jessica endured years of abuse from two of her children and ultimately had to leave the family home after being arrested and charged when one claimed she was the perpetrator.
"My son would hold a knife to my throat and my daughter would kick and spit at me," Jessica describes. "It got to the point where I couldn't go to the rest of the house really. I was living in a bedroom. It was marked cell number five with my name."
On the day of her arrest, Jessica says her daughter "started on" her again as she was entering her bedroom. Like Michelle, she put her hand out to signal she'd had enough. "Apparently that was attempting to push her down the stairs," she explains of how the incident was reported to police.
The Arrest Experience
Jessica remains haunted by the traumatic arrest. "I was in the bedroom with my other daughter," she recalls. "We were just laying there. There was a bang on the door. My bedroom door regularly banged from the children anyway, but as I went to open it, I was literally pulled out by force onto the little landing. I didn't have a clue what was happening—there was no reason for the police to be there. I was put in handcuffs."
"I was crying, and the two children that did this were sat there filming the whole thing and laughing. It was so daunting, and the way they treat you when you're going to the cells is just horrendous. I'd never been in one before."
Jessica spent a year under investigation before the common assault charge was dropped at crown court. "Everyone always joked and called me Wonder Woman because I had six children," she says. "I was a nursery manager. I was a trusted person. They've taken all of that away."
Systemic Failures
Beyond individual cases, counter-allegations create systemic problems. Women subjected to these tactics become less likely to be referred by police to specialist support services because they are perceived as perpetrators rather than victims.
Nadia Hughes explains the dynamic: "If you've got perpetrators who are recording a woman using resistance—someone who has been subjected to abuse for a long period of time and gets to the point where she retaliates as a response to that—that becomes an isolated incident away from the long-term abuse and can be used as evidence against her. We are finding that women are not speaking up—they are not feeling confident or safe to report."
Legal Reform Efforts
The Centre for Women's Justice is campaigning for a new defense in criminal law that would recognize coercive control as the driver of offenses. Currently, victims can only rely on the defense of duress—when coerced into acting under threat of violence—which has proven ineffective in domestic abuse cases.
Harriet Wistrich, founder and CEO of the Centre for Women's Justice, explains: "In a lot of domestic abuse situations, by the time police have arrived the victim could be very traumatized or hysterical and he's appearing very calm. If he's saying, 'she's just a bit mentally unwell and she's just thrown something at me,' how do police deal with that situation?"
"We have seen numerous situations where the woman has been arrested and she's really the victim, and police aren't necessarily able to make a careful assessment of what's going on. I've seen quite a number of cases where very coercively controlling men—very manipulative men—are able to set these situations up. It can all be quite Machiavellian and horrendous."
A Proposed Solution
Wistrich proposes a model based on protections for victims of trafficking: "Our proposed model recognizes that if you're forced to commit criminal offenses, essentially you have a defense if you can show it's directly linked with your exploitation. What we're arguing is that where somebody is in a coercively controlling relationship where they are under control of somebody and they are essentially forced to handle stolen goods or drugs or commit mortgage fraud or whatever it is, they can show circumstances which lead them to commit those acts."
"Obviously, it's not necessarily having a gun held to you, but if it's in that context of the relationship then they should have a defense and be able to argue they are not culpable rather than potentially argue it as mitigation but still be convicted of a crime."
Research indicates that nearly 70% of women in prison or under community supervision are victims of domestic abuse. For many, that abuse is directly linked to their offending through counter-allegations, coerced offending, or criminalization by association.
The stories of Michelle, Bethany, and Jessica reveal a justice system that sometimes fails to distinguish between perpetrators and victims, allowing manipulative abusers to weaponize legal processes against those they have harmed for years. As counter-allegations continue to deter reporting and result in wrongful arrests, advocates emphasize the urgent need for police training, legal reform, and systemic change to protect genuine victims of domestic violence.
