The Commercialisation of Conflict, the Family Court Economy and the Survivors Still Waiting for Justice
WHEN DOMESTIC ABUSE BECOMES EVERYDAY BUSINESS
The Commercialisation of Conflict, the Family Court Economy and the Survivors Still Waiting for Justice
THE DIRECTIVE™ | DOMESTIC ABUSE AWARENESS MONTH 2026
When the relationship ends, but the legal process becomes the next arena of control.
By Samantha Avril-Andreassen, LLB (Hons), LLM, LPC, FRSA
Founder, SAFECHAIN™ | Independent Governance Analyst | Systems Reform Specialist
INTRODUCTION: THE WORLD IS RAISING AWARENESS. BUT WHO IS PROTECTING THE SURVIVORS?
Every October, domestic abuse awareness campaigns fill our screens.
Institutions publish statements of solidarity.
Organisations display ribbons.
Professionals attend conferences.
Campaigns encourage victims to speak.
We are reminded to recognise the signs, report the abuse and support survivors.
And yet, behind the public declarations of commitment, an uncomfortable reality remains.
Many survivors are still fighting for safety long after they have escaped the relationship.
Some are fighting for their children.
Some are fighting to retain their homes.
Some are fighting to recover financial independence.
Some are fighting to correct institutional records.
Some are fighting to have their disclosures examined.
And some are fighting simply to survive the financial and psychological consequences of the very processes through which they sought protection.
The international evidence is sobering.
The World Health Organization's global prevalence estimates indicate that nearly one in three women aged 15 and older have experienced physical or sexual intimate partner violence, non-partner sexual violence, or both during their lifetime.
UN Women and the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime estimated that approximately 50,000 women and girls were killed by intimate partners or other family members in 2024.
These figures are not interchangeable measures, and differences in reporting make international trends difficult to compare.
But they demonstrate the scale of the continuing crisis.
Domestic abuse is not a marginal safeguarding issue.
It is a global public health, human rights and institutional governance challenge.
Yet awareness alone does not tell us whether the systems responding to that challenge are working.
We have become increasingly capable of recognising the language of abuse. Have we become equally capable of protecting the people experiencing it?
And there is a second question, one that deserves far greater public scrutiny:
What happens when the continuation of conflict becomes economically beneficial to the professional systems surrounding it?
That is the question this edition of The Directive™ examines.
1. THE RELATIONSHIP ENDS. THE BUSINESS OF CONFLICT BEGINS.
Domestic abuse does not necessarily end when the relationship ends.
Control can change form.
Where physical proximity is removed, other mechanisms may remain.
Money.
Property.
Children.
Information.
Reputation.
Legal proceedings.
Institutional complaints.
Repeated applications.
Disputed disclosures.
Financial claims.
For a survivor who has experienced coercive control, these processes may represent necessary attempts to establish safety and resolve legitimate legal questions.
But they may also become opportunities for further pressure.
The distinction is critical.
Access to justice is a fundamental right. Misusing legal processes to continue coercive behaviour is something entirely different.
Not every prolonged case is abusive.
Not every contested application is malicious.
Not every unsuccessful allegation is false.
And not every expensive legal dispute reflects professional misconduct.
But where credible evidence suggests that proceedings are being used to intimidate, financially exhaust, punish or maintain unwanted control over a former partner, the court and the professionals involved must be capable of examining that possibility.
The problem is not litigation itself.
The problem arises when litigation is treated as an ordinary dispute-management process without sufficient attention to the possibility that the process has become part of a wider pattern of abuse.
For some survivors, separation does not end the struggle.
It transfers the struggle into an environment where every response may require another document, another hearing and another expense.
2. WHEN DOMESTIC ABUSE BECOMES EVERYDAY BUSINESS IN THE FAMILY COURT
The phrase everyday business is not merely rhetorical.
It appears in the Domestic Abuse Commissioner's research examining how the family justice system in England and Wales responds to domestic abuse.
The Commissioner's pilot review identified evidence of domestic abuse in 87% of the child arrangements case files examined and in 73% of observed hearings across three court sites.
These findings cannot automatically be generalised to every family court case nationally.
But they raise profound questions about a system in which domestic abuse is encountered so frequently and yet is not always treated as an active safeguarding issue.
The research identified continuing structural barriers, including adversarialism, insufficient resources, silo working and a culture that could prioritise parental contact without adequately accounting for the effects of domestic abuse.
The consequences are not theoretical.
Survivors described feeling discouraged from raising abuse.
Some feared that challenging unsafe arrangements would expose them to worse outcomes.
Others reported experiencing the court process itself as prolonged, costly and traumatic.
These findings require more than another training presentation.
They require examination of the institutional model.
If domestic abuse is encountered as everyday business, safeguarding competence must become an everyday institutional capability.
It cannot remain an exceptional consideration introduced only after a survivor has repeatedly insisted that the court examine the context.
3. THE FAMILY COURT ECONOMY: WHO CAN AFFORD TO CONTINUE?
There is an uncomfortable economic dimension to family litigation.
Legal representation costs money.
Applications require preparation.
Evidence must be reviewed.
Correspondence must be answered.
Hearings must be attended.
Experts may be instructed.
Appeals and enforcement proceedings can create further costs.
In a genuinely contested case, these expenses may be necessary and proportionate.
Lawyers must be paid for legitimate professional work.
Courts must provide fair opportunities for both parties to present their cases.
But what happens when one party has substantially greater financial resources than the other?
What happens when one person can fund repeated applications while the other must choose between legal representation and essential living expenses?
What happens when an alleged victim of economic abuse is required to finance years of litigation concerning the consequences of that abuse?
And what happens when the professional costs of continuing proceedings are sustainable for the lawyers involved but increasingly unsustainable for the person seeking protection?
These are questions of economic inequality, procedural fairness and access to justice.
In October 2024, Resolution reported that 80% of family justice professionals responding to its research believed domestic abuse, particularly economic abuse, was not sufficiently considered in financial remedy proceedings.
That finding should concern every institution responsible for financial fairness following separation.
Because economic abuse is not merely an issue of who holds money at the point of divorce.
It may affect the person's capacity to obtain representation, disclose evidence, challenge assertions and participate effectively throughout the proceedings.
A process can appear formally equal while operating within profoundly unequal financial circumstances.
The legal system must not confuse the availability of a procedural right with the practical ability to exercise it.
4. WHEN ABUSE BECOMES A BUSINESS STRATEGY
This is the question that demands careful examination.
Can the continuation of a harmful dispute become financially advantageous to those professionally involved in it?
The answer, at the level of economic incentives, is that prolonged litigation can generate additional billable work.
That does not establish that any particular solicitor or firm has acted improperly.
It does, however, create a governance question.
How do professional systems distinguish necessary legal work from unnecessary escalation?
How do they prevent avoidable procedural complexity?
How do they ensure that commercial incentives do not displace the client's interests, professional independence or the proper administration of justice?
And how do courts respond when a pattern of applications appears designed to impose costs and pressure rather than resolve a genuine dispute?
There is an important distinction between three different situations.
First, legitimate representation: a lawyer properly advances a client's lawful case, including contested claims that may ultimately fail.
Second, client-driven litigation abuse: a person attempts to use legal proceedings to continue coercive control, potentially without the legal representative knowing the full history or intention.
Third, professional facilitation or misconduct: evidence may show that a professional knowingly assists improper conduct, misleads a court, advances matters without proper foundation or otherwise breaches applicable duties.
These situations must not be conflated.
The third requires evidence and appropriate professional or judicial scrutiny.
But the second also requires institutional awareness.
A professional can become involved in a harmful process without having intended to cause harm.
The existence of a legitimate professional role does not eliminate the need to examine its consequences.
The question is not whether lawyers should earn fees.
The question is whether the system contains sufficient safeguards to prevent the unnecessary continuation of conflict from becoming commercially sustainable while protection becomes financially inaccessible.
That is a governance problem.
And it deserves serious examination.
5. PROCEDURAL ABUSE: WHEN THE PROCESS BECOMES THE INSTRUMENT
Research increasingly recognises that legal proceedings can be misused as a form of post-separation coercive control.
A 2026 Australian qualitative study of women involved in family law proceedings documented three recurring themes:
The financial burden of seeking safety.
The depletion of emotional and financial resources.
And the intentional misuse of litigation as a means of continuing control.
The study also distinguished between deliberately abusive litigation and the unintended harms that can arise from adversarial legal structures.
That distinction is essential.
It demonstrates why we must examine both individual behaviour and institutional design.
A legal process may be procedurally legitimate in form but still require scrutiny of how it is being used.
Repeated applications, disproportionate demands, unnecessary disputes over evidence or strategically timed proceedings may warrant examination in context.
But frequency alone is not proof of abuse.
A person may make repeated applications because previous decisions were erroneous, circumstances changed or lawful remedies remain unresolved.
This is why SAFECHAIN™ places Evidence Integrity™, Context Integrity™ and the Equal Scrutiny Test™ at the centre of institutional assessment.
The question must be evidence-led.
What is the application seeking?
What is its factual basis?
What has already been determined?
What relevant evidence has been disclosed?
What is the history of the proceedings?
What is the cumulative impact?
And is there credible evidence of a purpose or pattern extending beyond legitimate dispute resolution?
The objective is not to punish persistence. It is to distinguish the pursuit of justice from the misuse of procedure.
6. THE PROFESSIONAL DUTY: A LAWYER IS NOT MERELY A COMMERCIAL AGENT
Legal practitioners occupy a distinctive position.
They act for clients, but they also operate within professional obligations to the court and the administration of justice.
A lawyer's duty is not simply to pursue every tactic a paying client requests.
Professional independence matters.
Candour matters.
The proper handling of evidence matters.
Proportionality matters.
And the duty not to mislead the court matters.
In England and Wales, solicitors and barristers are subject to professional regulatory obligations that cannot be displaced by commercial advantage.
The existence of those duties does not mean every legal practitioner is a safeguarding specialist.
Nor does it mean a lawyer representing someone accused of abuse is responsible for determining guilt.
Everyone is entitled to lawful representation.
But professional representation should not become a shield against legitimate scrutiny of professional conduct.
Where concerns arise about inaccurate statements, improper evidential practices, unnecessary escalation or abusive procedural tactics, those concerns should be assessed through appropriate judicial and regulatory mechanisms.
The independence of the legal profession is essential to justice. So is its accountability.
The profession should not be judged by unsupported allegations.
But neither should professional status place conduct beyond examination.
7. THE EQUALITY OF ARMS PARADOX™: WHEN BOTH PARTIES HAVE RIGHTS BUT ONLY ONE CAN AFFORD TO USE THEM
Procedural fairness is often discussed in terms of formal opportunity.
Both parties can file evidence.
Both can make submissions.
Both can challenge the other side.
Both can seek legal advice.
But the existence of a right does not establish equal capacity to exercise it.
One party may have substantial financial resources and an experienced legal team.
The other may be unrepresented, economically vulnerable, traumatised or managing disability-related barriers.
The court may treat the parties as procedurally equal while their actual capacity to participate differs significantly.
This is the concern addressed through the SAFECHAIN™ Equality of Arms Paradox™.
It is not an argument that a represented party should be penalised for obtaining legal assistance.
It is an argument that procedural fairness must take account of the practical conditions under which participation occurs.
The ability to understand evidence.
The capacity to respond to allegations.
The availability of necessary adjustments.
The financial burden of repeated proceedings.
The ability to obtain relevant documents.
And the cumulative effect of prolonged litigation.
These matters can materially affect whether a hearing is fair in substance.
Equality of arms cannot be assessed solely by counting the procedural rights available to each party.
It must also examine whether those rights can be meaningfully exercised.
8. WHEN THE SURVIVOR BECOMES THE MOST SCRUTINISED PERSON IN THE ROOM
A particularly troubling institutional risk arises when the focus of proceedings shifts away from the alleged abusive conduct and towards the survivor's reactions to it.
The survivor may be questioned about emotional distress.
Her financial instability may be presented as personal failure.
Her repeated attempts to obtain assistance may be characterised as excessive.
Her reluctance to engage with a former partner may be interpreted without adequate consideration of the reasons for that reluctance.
Her procedural difficulties may be treated as evidence of unreliability.
These possibilities do not mean every criticism of a survivor is invalid.
All relevant claims must be tested.
But the institutional response to vulnerability must not become a substitute for examining the conduct that may have contributed to that vulnerability.
This is where the SAFECHAIN™ Equal Scrutiny Test™ becomes relevant.
Are the parties' assertions subjected to comparable evidential standards?
Are inconsistencies examined fairly?
Are allegations distinguished from findings?
Is documentary evidence considered regardless of which party produces it?
Are financial claims independently tested where appropriate?
And are the consequences of coercive control considered without automatically accepting any particular account?
Fairness requires scrutiny of the evidence, not assumptions about the person presenting it.
9. THE CUMULATIVE HARM MODEL™: WHEN EVERY HEARING ADDS ANOTHER LAYER
The damage caused by prolonged proceedings cannot always be understood by examining each hearing separately.
A survivor may experience years of financial pressure.
Repeated disclosures.
Uncertainty over housing.
Interrupted employment.
Psychological distress.
The burden of preparing evidence.
And the continuing cost of responding to legal action.
Each institutional event may appear routine.
Together, they may produce a cumulative effect that significantly diminishes the person's capacity to rebuild.
The SAFECHAIN™ Cumulative Harm Model™ examines precisely this interaction.
The institution sees one hearing. The survivor experiences years of consequences.
A court may not be responsible for every hardship experienced by a litigant.
Nor can it eliminate all distress inherent in legal disputes.
But it can examine proportionality, case management, procedural fairness and relevant safeguarding concerns within its lawful powers.
The question is whether the institutional response recognises cumulative harm or treats every new event as disconnected from what came before.
Because a process can be lawful in its individual stages while still requiring scrutiny of its overall fairness and consequences.
10. LEGAL AID: THE RIGHT TO JUSTICE THAT MAY REMAIN OUT OF REACH
Access to legal representation is another critical issue.
In England and Wales, legal aid remains available in certain private family law cases involving domestic abuse or child abuse, subject to the applicable eligibility and evidence requirements.
But eligibility on paper does not necessarily mean practical access.
Survivors may struggle to satisfy the requirements, find an available provider or navigate the process while already facing significant financial and emotional pressures.
The Domestic Abuse Commissioner's research identified barriers that left some survivors navigating complex family proceedings without representation.
The consequences extend beyond individual cases.
Where one party is represented and the other is not, procedural complexity can become a significant obstacle.
Where proceedings are prolonged, legal costs can diminish the resources available for housing, childcare and recovery.
Where financial vulnerability has itself arisen from abuse, the legal process may compound the very disadvantage it ought to recognise.
Access to justice must be more than the theoretical right to enter a courtroom.
It must include a meaningful opportunity to participate in the process.
11. A GLOBAL PROBLEM REQUIRES MORE THAN LOCAL PROMISES
Although family justice systems differ across countries, the challenge of post-separation abuse is not confined to England and Wales.
Research from Australia, the United Kingdom and other common-law jurisdictions has examined the ways legal proceedings may become entangled with coercive control, financial abuse and repeated conflict.
The precise legal rules and remedies vary.
So do the available support services, funding arrangements and institutional safeguards.
We should not pretend that a single international model explains every survivor's experience.
But a common question emerges:
How can a legal system protect access to justice while preventing that access from being deliberately misused to perpetuate harm?
That question should be central to international conversations about domestic abuse.
It requires collaboration between the judiciary, legal profession, safeguarding services, researchers, regulators and survivor-led organisations.
It also requires independent assessment of what reforms actually achieve.
Because public commitments are not the same as measurable protection.
12. THE SAFECHAIN™ INSTITUTIONAL CHALLENGE: FROM AWARENESS TO ACCOUNTABILITY
I believe the next phase of domestic abuse reform must move beyond recognising abusive behaviour and towards examining the institutions through which allegations, disputes and safeguarding concerns are processed.
Through SAFECHAIN™, I propose a series of institutional questions.
First: Is the system capable of recognising possible litigation abuse?
Not through assumptions, but through evidence-led assessment of context, repetition, purpose and cumulative consequences.
Second: Are legal costs and procedural demands proportionate?
And is there meaningful scrutiny of avoidable escalation where the court has the power to intervene?
Third: Are professionals equipped to distinguish coercive control from ordinary high-conflict litigation?
A disagreement between parties is not necessarily abuse. But abuse should not automatically be reduced to mutual conflict.
Fourth: Is economic abuse properly considered?
Financial inequality can determine whether a person is able to obtain representation, challenge evidence and sustain proceedings.
Fifth: Are professional obligations actively upheld?
Professional independence, accurate evidence, candour and duties to the court must not become secondary to commercial incentives.
Sixth: Does the system examine cumulative harm?
The effects of repeated proceedings may be significant even where no single event appears exceptional.
Seventh: Are survivors able to participate meaningfully?
Procedural fairness requires more than formal access.
Eighth: Can institutions correct themselves?
Where credible evidence reveals error, inconsistency or procedural unfairness, accountability requires a lawful and effective route to correction.
These questions connect the SAFECHAIN™ frameworks of Institutional Integrity™, Evidence Integrity™, Participation Integrity™, the Cumulative Harm Model™, the Equality of Arms Paradox™ and the Burden of Correction Principle™.
They also point towards a broader principle:
A justice system must not measure its success by the volume of proceedings it processes while failing to examine whether those proceedings deliver fair and protective outcomes.
13. WHAT REFORM SHOULD ACTUALLY LOOK LIKE
Meaningful reform should not be measured by the number of conferences held or statements published during an awareness campaign.
It should be measured by changes in institutional capability.
That means stronger recognition of coercive control and post-separation abuse.
Effective, proportionate case management.
Accessible legal representation and specialist support.
Appropriate judicial consideration of repeated or potentially abusive applications.
Clearer professional guidance on recognising attempts to misuse legal processes.
Reliable evidence handling and meaningful disclosure.
Proper attention to economic abuse and financial inequality.
Appropriate procedural adjustments for vulnerable participants.
Mechanisms for examining cumulative harm.
And independent monitoring of whether reforms improve outcomes for adult and child survivors.
It also means protecting the right of every party to a fair hearing.
Safeguarding and due process are not competing values.
They are both necessary to a legitimate justice system.
The objective is not to make courts less fair to those accused of abuse. It is to make them more capable of examining abuse fairly.
CONCLUSION: WHEN THE PRICE OF JUSTICE BECOMES ANOTHER FORM OF HARM
Domestic Abuse Awareness Month should make us uncomfortable.
Not because awareness is unimportant.
But because awareness without accountability risks becoming a substitute for meaningful change.
Around the world, survivors are encouraged to disclose abuse, seek protection and trust the institutions established to help them.
Yet some continue to face financial exhaustion, prolonged legal conflict, fragmented support and repeated demands to prove the consequences of what they have experienced.
Meanwhile, the legal processes surrounding those disputes can generate substantial professional work.
That fact alone is not evidence of wrongdoing.
But it creates an obligation to examine whether the system adequately guards against unnecessary escalation, abusive litigation and conflicts between commercial incentives and the proper administration of justice.
Justice must not become a process in which the continuation of conflict is financially sustainable for professionals but personally devastating for the people seeking protection.
We must ask difficult questions.
Who benefits from delay?
Who bears the cost of repeated proceedings?
Who has the resources to continue?
Who becomes financially exhausted?
Who is responsible for identifying abusive procedural patterns?
Who scrutinises professional conduct?
And who measures whether the eventual outcome has delivered meaningful protection?
These questions are not an attack on the legal profession.
They are a demand for the integrity that should define it.
Because legal representation is essential.
Judicial independence is essential.
Due process is essential.
But so is the responsibility to ensure that institutions do not become unwitting instruments of continuing abuse.
The relationship ended. But the consequences did not.
The abuse was disclosed. But protection did not necessarily follow.
The proceedings continued. But the survivor's resources did not.
And this October, perhaps the most important question is not whether the world has become more aware of domestic abuse.
It is whether that awareness has changed the systems in which survivors are still struggling to obtain justice.
DOMESTIC ABUSE MUST NEVER BECOME A SUSTAINABLE BUSINESS MODEL FOR THE CONTINUATION OF HARM.
AWARENESS IS NOT ACCOUNTABILITY.
PROCEDURE IS NOT PROTECTION.
AND JUSTICE MUST NEVER BE MEASURED BY HOW LONG A SURVIVOR CAN AFFORD TO FIGHT.
SAFECHAIN™ — From Awareness to Institutional Capability.
FRAMEWORKS REFERENCED
SAFECHAIN™ Institutional Integrity™
SAFECHAIN™ Evidence Integrity™
SAFECHAIN™ Context Integrity™
SAFECHAIN™ Equal Scrutiny Test™
SAFECHAIN™ Equality of Arms Paradox™
SAFECHAIN™ Cumulative Harm Model™
SAFECHAIN™ Participation Integrity™
SAFECHAIN™ Burden of Correction Principle™
SAFECHAIN™ Institutional Clean Slate™
SAFECHAIN™ Connectivity Deficit™
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Samantha Avril-Andreassen, LLB (Hons), LLM, LPC, FRSA, is the Founder of SAFECHAIN™, an independent governance and safeguarding initiative developing frameworks addressing institutional integrity, evidence accountability, cumulative harm, meaningful participation and systems reform.
The Directive™ examines the intersection of institutional conduct, legal process, safeguarding responsibilities and the protection of vulnerable people.
© 2026 Samantha Avril-Andreassen. All Rights Reserved. Published by SAFECHAINN Ltd (Company No. 12038453).