Economic abuse linked to one domestic abuse death every three weeks, new report finds

Economic abuse featured in 51% of Domestic Homicide Reviews examined by Surviving Economic Abuse, according to new research warning that one victim dies every three weeks in cases involving economic abuse and intimate partner violence. The charity also says fewer than half of review panels, 47%, identified the economic abuse themselves.

That matters because economic abuse is not a side issue in domestic abuse. It is one of the ways coercive control works. If it is still being missed in the review of deaths, there is every reason to ask how often it is being missed much earlier, when intervention might still save lives. That second point is a reasoned inference from the report’s own findings.

Commenting on the findings, Aneeta Prem said: “Economic abuse does not always leave a bruise, but it can still take away a woman’s freedom.”

The March 2026 research says 231 of 454 Domestic Homicide Reviews featured economic abuse by a current or former partner. It also found that 90% of these reviews involved at least one female victim and 90% involved at least one male perpetrator. Victims were significantly younger on average, with a mean age of 41 compared with 52 in cases that did not feature economic abuse by a current or former partner.

Economic abuse is already recognised in law in England and Wales. The government’s statutory definition factsheet says domestic abuse is not limited to physical violence and includes emotional and economic abuse, and that economic abuse was included specifically to show that it is a distinct type of abuse.

That matters because financial control is still too often minimised as a private money problem, a difficult separation or poor budgeting, when it may in fact be part of a wider pattern of coercive control. It can shape whether a woman can leave, whether she can support her children, whether she can secure housing, and whether she feels there is any realistic way out.

The wider pattern is getting harder to ignore. The National Police Chiefs’ Council said that 262 domestic abuse-related deaths were recorded between 1 April 2023 and 31 March 2024, including 98 suspected suicides following domestic abuse and 80 intimate partner homicides. It said suspected suicides following domestic abuse had overtaken intimate partner homicides for the second year in a row. The year before, the NPCC reported 242 domestic abuse-related deaths, including 93 suspected victim suicides, and said it had recorded an increase in suspected suicides by domestic abuse victims for the first time.

That sits alongside SEA’s 2025 report, Counting the Cost, which found that 4.1 million women in the UK experienced economic abuse from a current or former partner in the previous 12 months, equivalent to one in seven women. It also found that the burden was not evenly shared. SEA reported that Black, Asian and racially minoritised women, disabled women, younger women and women with children were among those disproportionately affected.

The significance of the new report is simple. Economic abuse is now recognised in law. The problem is that too many systems still fail to recognise it in practice. That gap matters because it is often the difference between early intervention and irreversible harm.

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Sources:
Surviving Economic Abuse, At least one economic abuse victim dies every three weeks / Economic abuse kills.
Surviving Economic Abuse, Counting the Cost: The Scale and Impact of Economic Abuse in the UK, July 2025.
GOV.UK, Statutory definition of domestic abuse factsheet.
Surviving Economic Abuse, Economic abuse and the Domestic Abuse Act.
CPS, Domestic abuse guidance.
National Police Chiefs’ Council, domestic abuse deaths reports, March 2024 and March 2025.

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Aneeta Prem MBE London 6 March 2026

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