England and Wales pioneered the criminalisation of coercive control, but it doesn’t apply outside of intimate or family relationships. Why stop there?
When Rachael Reign finally left her relationship and called the police, she came with a litany of allegations.
She felt parts of her life had been controlled, she told the call handler. She said she had been given instructions about what to wear, which included a ban on certain shades of nail varnish. She felt pressured to give up a portion of her income. She had been told that bad things would happen if she left.
But Rachael’s relationship wasn’t with a partner – it was with a religious group, the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God (UCKG). And there wasn’t much the police could do. “If my boyfriend did what my pastor did, I believe police could have investigated it,” Rachael says now. A Met spokesperson told the Guardian that it had received allegations of “harassment and controlling behaviour related to fraudulent activity by a church based in Croydon” between 2004 and 2018, but “after further enquiries … it was determined that the allegations were not criminal offences”.
The UCKG itself “categorically rejects” these allegations, saying that it “does not control members’ personal lives” and that it is untrue that “individuals are instructed on what to wear or how to manage their finances”. It also “rejects claims that individuals are threatened or told that harm will come to them if they leave”. (An investigation by the Fundraising Regulator found that in a separate case the UCKG, which is a charity, had breached the code on vulnerable donors, but that “the amount and frequency” of donations were “voluntary”.)
