Coercive Control in Queensland — The New Laws Explained
Domestic Violence — 2026-07-24 — by Sacha Sarah Smith, Civic Law
Queensland made coercive control a standalone criminal offence on 26 May 2025. What the charge involves, how it differs from other DV offences, and what you are facing if charged.
On 26 May 2025, Queensland made coercive control a standalone criminal offence. The charge sits under section 334C of the Criminal Code — Chapter 29A, commonly called Hannah's Law. It carries a maximum penalty of 14 years imprisonment and is tried in the District Court before a jury.
If you have been charged with coercive control, you are dealing with one of the most serious domestic violence offences in Queensland. It is a show cause offence — which means the court starts from a position of keeping you in custody, and you have to convince the court to let you out on bail .
This is a new offence. There is no established sentencing pattern, no appellate case law, and no settled approach to how courts will interpret the elements. Every early case is, to some extent, a test case. Below is what the charge involves and what you need to understand.
What the Prosecution Must Prove
Before you can be found guilty, the prosecution has to prove four things beyond reasonable doubt under section 334C. If any one of them is missing, the charge against you fails:
You are an adult in a domestic relationship with the other person. You must be 18 or older. The relationship can be a current or former intimate partner, a family member, or an informal carer. If your relationship does not fall within the legal definition, the charge cannot stand.
You engaged in a course of conduct involving domestic violence on more than one occasion. A single incident is not enough. The prosecution must show you engaged in a pattern — abusive behaviour that happened more than once. Your individual acts are assessed together, in the context of your relationship as a whole, not in isolation.
You intended the course of conduct to coerce or control the other person. The prosecution must prove you actually intended to coerce or control — not just that you were careless or reckless. Under section 334C(3), they do not need to prove you intended each individual act to be controlling. It is the pattern as a whole that must carry that intent.
Your course of conduct would be reasonably likely to cause harm. "Harm" means any negative effect on the other person's physical, emotional, financial, psychological, or mental wellbeing. The prosecution does not need to prove harm was actually caused — only that your conduct was reasonably likely to cause it.
If the prosecution cannot prove any one of those four elements, you walk out not guilty. Each element creates a potential line of defence — and Sacha assesses every one of them against the evidence in your brief.
What Counts as "Domestic Violence" for This Charge
Section 334B of the Criminal Code defines domestic violence broadly for the purposes of this offence. It is not limited to physical violence. The definition includes behaviour that is:
Physically or sexually abusive. Hitting, pushing, restricting movement, or any unwanted sexual conduct.
Emotionally or psychologically abusive. Constant criticism, humiliation, threats to harm yourself if the other person leaves, manipulating them into doubting their own perception of events.
Economically abusive. Controlling access to money, preventing someone from working, running up debts in their name, withholding financial information.
Threatening or coercive. Threats of violence, threats to take the children, threats to have someone deported, intimidation designed to make the other person comply.
Any behaviour that controls or dominates the other person and causes them to fear for their safety or wellbeing, or that of someone else. This is a catch-all. It covers tracking someone's movements, monitoring their phone, isolating them from friends and family, controlling what they wear or who they see, and threatening to harm pets.
The prosecution builds its case from your entire relationship. That means your text messages spanning months or years, your financial records, social media activity, tracking or monitoring data, body-worn camera footage from police attendances, statements from people you both know, and medical records. The volume of evidence in a coercive control matter is typically far greater than in a single-incident charge — and Sacha reviews all of it before giving you any advice on your options.
How This Charge Differs from Other DV Offences
Most domestic violence charges relate to a single event — an assault, a threat, property damage, a DVO breach . Coercive control is different. It captures a sustained pattern of behaviour across the relationship, where no single act needs to be a criminal offence on its own. It is the cumulative pattern, directed by a controlling intent, that makes the charge.
For you, this has practical consequences:
The evidence window is your entire relationship. For an assault charge, the prosecution focuses on one incident. For coercive control, the prosecution goes through everything — every text you sent, every financial transaction, every contact with police — potentially spanning years.
Individual acts do not need to be proved to the same standard as standalone charges. Under section 334C(5), the prosecution does not need to allege or prove the same level of detail for each individual act that it would if that act were charged separately. And the jury does not all need to agree on the same specific acts — they just need to agree that a course of conduct occurred.
You can be charged with coercive control and other offences from the same conduct at the same time. Section 334C(6) allows the prosecution to charge you with coercive control alongside assault, choking , wilful damage , stalking, or any other DV offence arising from the same period. If you are convicted of both, your sentences run at the same time — they cannot be stacked on top of each other under section 334C(9).
Bail — Show Cause Applies
Coercive control is a show cause offence . Under section 16(6)(b) of the Bail Act 1980 , any offence carrying a maximum penalty of seven years or more that is also a domestic violence offence triggers a show cause obligation. Coercive control carries 14 years — well above that threshold.
For you, this means:
You may be held in custody until your first court appearance. Police can remand you at the watch house rather than granting you bail.
At court, you must show cause why keeping you locked up is not justified. The normal presumption in favour of bail is reversed. You need a properly prepared bail application — an affidavit, written submissions, proposed conditions — not just standing up and asking.
If you fail to show cause, the court must refuse your bail. There is no discretion. Your application has to be right the first time.
If you know you are about to be charged — or if someone in your family has been arrested and is being held — call Sacha immediately so your bail application can be prepared before the first appearance at the Cairns Magistrates Court .
The Restraining Order — Even After Acquittal
Section 334E of the Criminal Code gives the court a power that does not exist for most criminal charges. On the hearing of a coercive control charge, the court can make a restraining order against you — regardless of the outcome. That includes if you are found not guilty, or if the prosecution drops your charge entirely.
The restraining order is separate from a Domestic Violence Order under the DFVPA. It is a standalone power attached to the coercive control charge itself. The court makes the order if it considers it desirable — the criminal standard of beyond reasonable doubt does not apply.
A restraining order lasts for the period the court decides, or five years if no end date is set. This means a coercive control charge can have lasting consequences for you even if you are acquitted. It needs to be addressed as part of your defence strategy from day one.
Defences and What Changes the Outcome
There is a statutory defence under section 334C(10). You can argue that your course of conduct was reasonable in the context of the relationship as a whole. The burden is on you to prove this on the balance of probabilities — a lower standard than the prosecution faces. But section 334C(11) makes clear that believing each individual act was reasonable is not enough — your argument has to be that the pattern, taken together, was reasonable.
Beyond the statutory defence, your lawyer can challenge the prosecution's case on each of the four elements:
Was the relationship a "domestic relationship" under the Act? If not, the charge fails at the first hurdle.
Was there a genuine course of conduct? If the prosecution's evidence shows isolated incidents rather than a connected pattern, the charge may not be made out.
Can the prosecution prove specific intent? Recklessness or negligence is not enough. If the evidence shows conflict, dysfunction, or poor communication — but not a deliberate pattern of controlling behaviour — the intent element may fail.
Was your conduct reasonably likely to cause harm? This is assessed objectively. If a reasonable person would not consider your conduct likely to cause harm, the fourth element is not made out.
Because this offence only applies to conduct on or after 26 May 2025, timing is also a live issue. If your alleged course of conduct spans the commencement date, only your behaviour from 26 May 2025 onwards can form part of the charge. The law cannot be applied retrospectively.
The sentencing range is wide — from non-custodial outcomes to years of imprisonment. What moves the outcome in your favour includes an early guilty plea, completing a counselling or behaviour change program before your sentencing, strict compliance with your bail conditions, and evidence that the conduct was limited in scope and duration. What makes it worse includes a long pattern of escalating abuse, your prior DV history, evidence of significant harm to the other person, and the involvement of children.
Talk to Civic Law
Coercive control is a serious charge with no established case law. The way it is handled from the first court appearance shapes the outcome. Call Sacha Sarah Smith on 0425 429 458 for a direct assessment of where you stand — what the prosecution needs to prove, whether the evidence supports the charge, and what your realistic options are.
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Show Cause Bail Application
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