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PRD Family Law

Pleading and Proving Coercive Control: What Pickford and the Recent First-Instance Decisions Tell Practitioners

Lawyer reviewing family law documents with a gavel on a desk.

The statutory starting point, and its deliberate silence

Section 4AB(1) of the Family Law Act 1975 (Cth) defines family violence as violent, threatening or other behaviour by a person that coerces or controls a member of the person’s family, or causes that family member to be fearful. Subsection (2) supplies a non-exhaustive list of examples, several of which — repeated derogatory taunts, unreasonable denial of financial autonomy, preventing connections with family, friends or culture, unlawful deprivation of liberty — are directed squarely at non-physical conduct.

What the section conspicuously does not do is define “coercive control”. In Carter & Wilson [2023] FedCFamC1A 9, Bennett J observed at [74] that while the term has been attributed a legal definition in some jurisdictions, s 4AB does not. McCreadie’s paper characterises the expression as a technical phrase drawn from the social science literature — a concatenation of coercive behaviour and controlling behaviour.

That silence is a drafting instruction. Practitioners should be pleading conduct against the statutory language, not against a social science construct. The question is whether the behaviour coerced, controlled, or caused fear — not whether it satisfies an academic model.

The distinction between the two limbs is also worth preserving in the drafting. Controlling behaviour regulates, dominates or restricts autonomy. Coercive behaviour applies pressure, intimidation, threats or manipulation to compel compliance. Conduct need not be both.

Pickford: the framework, and the caution

Pickford & Pickford [2024] FedCFamC1A 249 is now the reference point for how these allegations are to be determined, and it does two things at once.

First, it sets out the forensic task. At [48], the Full Court described the exercise a trial judge undertakes when determining an allegation that a person has engaged in behaviour that coerces or controls a family member. In substance, the Court must:

  • identify the specific behaviour said to constitute the conduct
  • consider it in its full context, including the alleged perpetrator’s explanation for it
  • assess the actual impact on the person alleging it, rather than assuming impact
  • make findings of fact
  • explain why the behaviour does, or does not, constitute family violence within s 4AB

Second, it draws a boundary. At [53], the Court recognised that in parenting matters parents will often disagree, and cautioned against conflating ordinary parental conflict with family violence. One litigant does not commit family violence against another merely by declining to consent to the orders that other party seeks. Reasonable parenting proposals — the choice of a treating practitioner, the timing of changeover — may be appropriate or controlling depending on the circumstances.

The majority in Pickford upheld the family violence findings on a broad construction of the definition. A minority favoured a narrower approach. Practitioners running or defending these allegations should read the whole judgment rather than the headnote, because the division reflects a live tension about how far the definition reaches.

Third — and this is frequently missed — intent is not an element. The Court made clear that a person may engage in coercive controlling behaviour even where they are unaware of its impact, and that importing an intent requirement would introduce an unnecessary constraint on the protective purpose of the provision. Cross-examination directed at establishing that a respondent did not mean to control is, on its own, addressed to the wrong question.

The cumulative and contextual principle

Where Pickford supplies the framework, the first-instance authority supplies the method.

Ms Lyndell McCreadie’s 2026 paper Like a Puppet on a String draws attention to Melounis & Melounis (No 6) [2025] FedCFamC1F 938, in which Altobelli J undertook an extensive examination of the inter-parental dynamic and recognised that behaviours which appear insignificant individually may collectively reveal a deeply coercive and controlling dynamic. Coercive control rarely manifests through a single dramatic act; it emerges through sustained patterns of domination, destabilisation and psychological control. The orders made included a change to the live-with arrangement, permission to relocate, and sole parental responsibility to the mother.

The paper also identifies Vacek & Novosel (No. 5) [2026] FedCFamC2F 261, in which Beckhouse J found that the father had used systems and agencies to control, punish and intimidate, had monitored communications, and had engaged in coercive and controlling patterns throughout the proceedings themselves.

Two practical consequences follow.

The first is that the case is the pattern, not the incident. Material that leads with the two or three worst events and treats the rest as background inverts the structure the Court is being asked to apply.

The second is that systems abuse — the use of legal systems, institutions or processes as instruments of ongoing control, through repeated litigation, excessive subpoenas or agency complaints — is squarely within the field of enquiry, and can be evidenced from the file itself.

Where affidavits fail

The failure mode is consistent, and it is not usually a failure of facts. It is a failure to particularise impact.

Pickford requires an assessment of actual impact and states that mere assertion is insufficient. An affidavit that establishes twenty instances of monitoring and then says nothing about what those instances did to the deponent has left the tribunal without the material to complete the statutory task.

Impact evidence should be specific and, where possible, behavioural: constant fear, helplessness and distress; the effect of a particular communication style; manipulation exercised through the parenting arrangements; threats of litigation or police involvement; interference with attempts to obtain professional support. What is being built is a picture of one party seeking to control the other, through coercive behaviour, controlling behaviour, or both.

The evidentiary sources will be familiar: text messages and email threads, financial records, a behavioural chronology, lay witness evidence, and expert psychological evidence where it is warranted. The chronology, in particular, is doing analytical work rather than narrative work — it is the vehicle by which individually unremarkable events are presented cumulatively.

Vulnerable cohorts

The literature identifies additional barriers facing First Nations communities, culturally and linguistically diverse communities, LGBTQIA+ relationships, people with disabilities, and economically disadvantaged litigants. These barriers affect disclosure, the availability of corroborating witnesses, and access to the very services that generate documentary evidence. Where they are present, they should be addressed in the material rather than left to be inferred from an apparently thin evidentiary record.

A short practice checklist

  • Plead conduct against the words of s 4AB, not against the phrase “coercive control”
  • Distinguish the coercive limb from the controlling limb, and do not concede that both are required
  • Structure the material cumulatively; lead with the pattern
  • Particularise impact for each strand of conduct
  • Anticipate the Pickford boundary and explain why the conduct is more than ordinary parenting disagreement
  • Do not put the case on intention
  • Where the litigation itself is the instrument, plead systems abuse and evidence it from the court file

PRD Family Law acts in parenting and property matters involving family violence from offices in Dandenong and Pascoe Vale. We welcome referrals and are happy to discuss a matter before it is briefed.

This article is general information for legal and allied professionals and is not legal advice.

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