Histories of family life and gender–power relations have revealed that physical and mental cruelty to women and children were typically taken for granted as part of ‘normal’ family relations for centuries. Domestic violence and abuse, now understood more broadly as IPVA, generally takes place away from the public gaze, making it easy to ignore, diminish and/or deny. Therefore, even in sophisticated western democratic societies, recognition that violent behaviour in the private sphere ‘counts’ along with publicly committed violence and coercive control is a relatively new concept.

The latter part of the twentieth into the twenty-first century saw significant changes so that now, in law and in general, violence, abuse and cruelty, both in the home and towards an intimate partner in public, are without doubt as unacceptable as they are when similar acts occur to strangers in a public place It is only during the past 25 to 30 years, though, that domestic violence and abuse have reached the top of the public criminal health, legal, social care and academic agendas, with research evidence now providing the core of practitioner training and guidelines for good.