Part 6: Offences involving violent or abusive behaviour Section 68: Controlling or coercive behaviour in an intimate or family relationship
Section 76 of the Serious Crime Act 2015 provides for the offence of controlling or coercive behaviour in an intimate or familial relationship. The offence was created to close a gap in the law around patterns of controlling or coercive behaviour during a relationship where person A and person B are "personally connected", as defined in section 76(2) and (6), as intimate partners; former partners who still live together; or family members who live together.
	Section 68 amends the definition of "personally connected" in section 76 of the Serious Crime Act 2015 to align it with that in section 2 of the Domestic Abuse Act. This removes the current requirement for A and B to live together if they are former intimate partners or family members in order to be "personally connected", so that the offence would apply regardless of whether persons A and B live together in the same household. It is therefore no longer a requirement of the section 76 offence for ex- intimate partners or family members to live together in order to be considered "personally connected", thereby bringing within the ambit of the offence controlling or coercive behaviour by a former intimate partner that takes place post-separation or by a family member who does not live with the victim.