What Is Domestic Violence?

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“Relationship conflict” can hide who is threatening, intimidating, or controlling whom.

Record the perpetrator’s actions, not just the atmosphere or problems in the relationship.

Good case notes make the pattern of coercion, its impact, and the person responsible easy to see.

"I'm going to kill you!"

"I'm going to kill you!"

A man screamed it inside a flat in Greater Manchester, loud enough that the words punched through the wall to the home next door. It was just after 4 p.m. on March 13, 2023, and the neighbour sat listening as the man kept shouting and hurling objects across the room. Then came a run of heavy thuds, sounds the neighbour would later tell police, like a body falling or being thrown down the stairs. A woman cried out in pain. Then the flat went silent.

The neighbour dialed 999.

Police reached the door within minutes. The man was already gone, and he had locked the door behind him as he left. When no one answered, officers forced their way in.

Inside, they found 33-year-old Danielle Haggerty near the top of the stairs, a ligature around her neck. She was unconscious and not breathing. Officers began CPR; paramedics restarted her heart, but the loss of oxygen had already caused irreversible brain damage. Three days later, her family made the decision to withdraw life support. Danielle was an organ donor. Her death saved the lives of three other people.

Later, investigators documented fresh bite marks on the man's forearms, indicating that a violent struggle had taken place inside the flat. The inquest concluded that she had died following an act of self-harm, at a time of distress, in the immediate aftermath of what it called a "violent argument," in a relationship it described as "volatile and abusive."

Yet a relationship cannot shout that it is going to kill someone. It cannot throw objects, or lock a door from the outside and walk away. Those were things a man did. The inquest's language........

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