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The Top High-Risk Indicators
Recognising the critical warning signs that a situation could escalate:
✅ Extreme fear ✅ Stalking ✅ Coercive control ✅ History of sexual abuse or rape ✅ Abuse towards a minor ✅ Threats or attempts of suicide ✅ History of non-fatal strangulation ✅ Prior use of weapons to instill fear ✅ Threats of homicide ✅ Victim is pregnant ✅ History of isolation ✅ Suspect has a history of drug or alcohol misuse ✅ Shared children with the victim
✅ Esculation in behavior
✅ Signs of jealousy
✅ Conflicts over child contact
✅ System abuse
✅ Threats of any kind
"Invisible" Risk Factors in Child Contact Cases
Understanding the patterns professionals and victims often miss:
🚩 DARVO (Deny, Attack, Reverse Victim & Offender Role) The perpetrator denies or minimises abuse despite clear evidence and deflects attention away from themselves by positioning their victim as the problem.
🛑 This happens frequently in both criminal and family court cases.
🚩 Delayed or Strategic Drug/Alcohol Testing A perpetrator delays taking a court-ordered drug/alcohol test and later presents a clean result.
🛑 Why this is risky: High-functioning addicts can abstain short-term to manipulate legal outcomes but often revert to old behaviors once the scrutiny fades.
🚩 Extreme Fear
🛑 Even when someone cannot fully articulate or rationalise their own fear, fear is never without good reason, it is often driven by the primal survival response.
Fear can be triggered by something as subtle as a look, a shift in tone, or the way someone carries themselves. This instinctive reaction is heightened when a perpetrator has planted seeds of uncertainty early on, perhaps by sharing disturbing stories of extreme or dangerous behavior. These accounts may seem far-fetched at the time, leading the victim to dismiss them consciously. However, the subconscious mind stores them as critical warnings, primed to resurface when a future threat is detected.
A perpetrator doesn’t need to have been overtly violent or made direct threats for a victim’s fear to be valid. Heightened fear can signal an escalation in the perpetrator’s behavior—and it can also increase the risk of suicide. Fear should never be ignored or minimised.
Two Questions That Can Reveal Imminent Danger For Both Adult Victims & Their Children
1️⃣ Does the suspect have a history of drug or alcohol misuse?
🔹 Key Risk Factor: Addiction relapse is most likely to occur between 6 months and 2 years of abstinence. 🔹 Professionals should always err on the side of caution when assessing child safety, especially if coercive control and other risk factors are present.
2️⃣ Have there been threats of suicide, threats to kill, or both?
🔹 Why this matters:
Perpetrators who feel they’ve “lost” control in every corner of their life have a higher risk of engaging in last-resort thinking.
🔹 Example:
John has been out of work for some time and is struggling with substance abuse. After losing his case in family court after repeated system abuse and ongoing stalking behaviour to intimidate his victim back into compliance. Now that John has lost control over his victim's life and his own, John feels he has nothing left to lose. This is where John may resort to a "last-resort" thinking.
If John has made past threats, either direct or indirect, this could represent serious risk of escalation that could result in a fatality.
This is where I would strongly encourage family court professionals to communicate this risk of escalation to the police and take steps to manage risk.
🚨 A history of substance misuse increases the unpredictability and escalating risk.
🛑 1 in 2 perpetrators follow through on threats of serious harm.
🛑 On average 2 women a week lose their life at the hands of a current or ex partner
🛑 Marie Tidball announced in parliament recently that 48 children, that we know of, have lost their life as a result of court permitted contact visits, despite there being a known history of domestic abuse.
🔹 Case Example: Alice Ruggles Alice's ex-partner engaged in repeated stalking after their breakup. He didn’t always seem aggressive; in fact, before he brutally took her life, he turned up with chocolates and flowers. But he made an indirect threat that terrified Alice.
💬 "I'm not going to kill you."
The real question is: Why did Dhillon feel the need to say this at all? A statement like this doesn’t come out of nowhere. It suggests that something had already happened, whether through his words, actions, or patterns of behavior, that made Alice question what he was truly capable of.
When someone feels the need to reassure another person of their safety in this way, it often means fear has already been instilled. It’s a subtle yet chilling form of psychological manipulation, where the absence of an explicit threat is framed as a form of reassurance. But the fact that it needed to be said at all speaks volumes.
Watch the brief video below and consider what additional, less apparent risk factors may be at play.
The #1 Mistake When Communicating Risk
🚫 Psychological Labels Can Distract from Risk
🔹 Using terms like narcissist or borderline personality disorder can shift focus away from dangerous behaviors, leading to victim-blaming and minimisation of the perpetrator’s intent.
⚠️ Mental health is one of the top reasons CPS issues a "No Further Action" (NFA) decision!
🔹 Solution: Always use legally factual language when communicating risk.
🚸 This Also Applies to Children
Even if a child has been formally diagnosed with a mental health condition (e.g., ADHD), professionals must:
✔️ Focus on the environment’s impact rather than just the diagnosis. ✔️ Recognise that children’s brains respond to perceived threats in their environment. ✔️ Be aware that dysregulated children may mirror behaviors observed in abusive households.
Key Professional Tips for Handling Domestic Abuse Cases
🚫 Stay Impartial!
🔹 Why this matters:
As professionals, we must refrain from allowing our personal feelings and first impressions to shape our approach. Whether we are supporting the alleged victim or the accused, the situation may not always align with the narrative presented.
Even if we can personally empathise and connect with the individual we are assisting, our professional observations must always be grounded in factual information!
This is where an effective timeline and trauma-informed engagement techniques become an invaluable tool for identifying any discrepancies in someone's account.