# Coercive Control Law and the Regulation of High-Control Groups · The Cult Dossier · The Atlas · The Congregation of Tomorrow

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The Cult Dossier · No. 151 · The Opposition / Anti-Cult
Coercive Control Law and the Regulation of High-Control Groups
Serious Crime Act 2015 s.76; the Victorian cults inquiry
2015 – present · England and Wales; Victoria, Australia
XIV. THE OPPOSITION — WHAT WAS BUILT TO FIGHT THEM
NOT A GROUP. This entry tracks the law itself — the attempt, still unfinished, to write a statute that reaches what happens inside these organisations.
### Who led it
### What it worshipped and taught
### Who was in it
### How it ended, or where it stands
### The dead
### Of note
### Its timeline
- 2015 SERIOUS CRIME ACT 2015, SECTION 76 (Part 5) creates the offence of CONTROLLING OR COERCIVE BEHAVIOUR IN AN INTIMATE OR FAMILY RELATIONSHIP in England and Wales. For the first time a pattern of conduct — rather than any single assault — becomes a crime in itself. As enacted it requires the parties to be living together.
- 2021 and 2023 THE DOMESTIC ABUSE ACT 2021 removes the living-together requirement from s.76, so the offence reaches former partners and family members who do not live with the victim. The change comes into force on 5 APRIL 2023.
- 2015–present AND THIS IS THE HOLE. The offence applies only to those who are PERSONALLY CONNECTED — partners, ex-partners, family. IT DOES NOT COVER CULTS OR HIGH-CONTROL GROUPS. A man who isolates his wife from her family, controls her money and dictates her movements commits a criminal offence; A LEADER WHO DOES ALL OF THAT TO A HUNDRED FOLLOWERS COMMITS NONE. There is no equivalent punitive measure available.
- JULY 2022 THE FAMILY SURVIVAL TRUST publishes COERCIVE CONTROL IN CULTIC GROUPS IN THE UNITED KINGDOM. Its finding is one sentence: perpetrators in intimate relationships can be held to account under s.76, while IN CULTS THERE ARE NO SIMILARLY AVAILABLE PUNITIVE MEASURES. It presses for s.76 to be extended to high-control groups, and survivors have campaigned on it since.
- 2024–2026 THE PARLIAMENT OF VICTORIA HOLDS THE FIRST INQUIRY OF ITS KIND IN AUSTRALIA — the Legal and Social Issues Committee’s INQUIRY INTO THE RECRUITMENT METHODS AND IMPACTS OF CULTS AND ORGANISED FRINGE GROUPS, initiated by CHRISTINE COUZENS after former members of a secretive Christian group in Geelong described severe punishments and extreme teachings. Public hearings run through 2025. THE COMMITTEE IS EXPLICIT THAT IT IS EXAMINING BEHAVIOUR, NOT BELIEF, and is looking at regulatory gaps including the use of TAX and charity regulation to prevent harm.
- 29 JULY 2026 THE COMMITTEE REPORTS, AND RECOMMENDS EXACTLY WHAT THIS ENTRY SAID WAS MISSING. COERCION AND HARM IN HIGH CONTROL GROUPS is tabled in the Legislative Assembly in two volumes — CROSSING THE LINE and IN THEIR WORDS — with 98 FINDINGS AND 39 RECOMMENDATIONS, drawn from 291 submissions, 317 questionnaire responses and eight days of hearings. THE CENTRAL RECOMMENDATION IS A CRIMINAL OFFENCE OF COERCIVE CONTROL IN A HIGH-CONTROL GROUP, with the VICTORIAN LAW REFORM COMMISSION to work out the options within two years and legislation in force BY FEBRUARY 2029.
- PENDING THE VICTORIAN GOVERNMENT HAS SIX MONTHS TO RESPOND, WHICH RUNS TO LATE JANUARY 2027. NOTHING IS LAW YET. A recommendation is not a statute, and this entry stays amber until one exists.
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