UK: Domestic autonomy takes another beating

Article here. Excerpt:

'This new definition will include ‘any incident or pattern of incidents of controlling, coercive or threatening behaviour, violence or abuse between those aged 16 or over who are or have been intimate partners or family members’. It will extend not only to physical or sexual abuse but to financial, psychological and emotional abuse, too. The Home Office announcement explains that controlling behaviour includes acts ‘designed to make a person subordinate and/or dependent’ by, among other things, ‘exploiting their resources and capacities for personal gain’ or ‘regulating their everyday behaviour’.
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The most direct danger is to those individuals – mainly men – who will be branded as domestic-violence perpetrators. Even leaving to one side the stigma, not to mention the real risk of prosecution, the label domestic violence is the gateway to a nebulous bundle of coercive state powers. A sobering example is the Domestic Violence Protection Notice, currently being piloted. Under this scheme, if a police officer reasonably believes that a man has used or threatened violence towards his partner and that his partner needs protection from him, then the police officer has the power to order him to leave his home and also his neighbourhood, even against his partner’s wishes. So when the police are called - perhaps by a neighbour - to defuse a heated family row, this can lead to eviction and forced family separation, even though the couple raised only their voices, not their fists.'