Professor in Law (Vice Chancellor Fellow) Vanessa Bettinson

Professor

Department: Northumbria Law School

Vanessa Bettinson is a professor of law and a Vice Chancellor Research Fellow at Northumbria School of Law, Northumbria University, having previously worked at De Montfort University, Leicester. Her research interest and published work has a core theme of embedding understandings of domestic violence and abuse in the criminal law. However, she also explores issues relating to vulnerability more broadly. She has extensive experience in organising interdisciplinary events both nationally and internationally which are forums for academics and practitioners working in domestic violence and abuse. For the most part her approach to research is socio-legal and she collaborates with external partners and academics in diverse disciplines. She is a member of Northumbria University's Gender, Violence and Abuse Interdisciplinary Research Theme.

Her recent funded work includes:

Exploring the use of artificial intelligence to identify perpertrators of technology facilitated coercive control, Home Office Domestic Abuse Perpetrator Fund in 2021-22. The research team consisted of academics based in computer science, criminology and social work.

Place to Call Home Project: Unaccompanied Asylum-Seeking Children and Foster Care Provision, Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, Lead Partner Leicesteshire County Council, 2020-2022. The research team included academics from law and social work.

Her current research projects focus on sentencing of women whose crimes are driven by coercive control, public perceptions of self-defence where violence is used as a response to domestic abuse and exploring children's experiences of reporting crime within the criminal justice system in England.

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Key Publications

Please visit the Pure Research Information Portal for further information
A new self-defence framework for domestic abuse survivors who use violent resistance in response, Bettinson, V., Wake, N. 1 Jan 2024, In: Modern Law Review
A One-sided Coin? Attributing Agency and Responsibility in Contexts of Coercive Control, Bettinson, V., Munro, V., Wake, N., Ahluwalia, P. 2 May 2024, Criminal Law Reform Now, London, Bloomsbury
Coercion, Control and Criminal Responsibility: Exploring Professional Responses to Offending and Suicidality in the Context of Domestically Abusive Relationships, Munro, V., Bettinson, V., Burton, M. 1 Jun 2024, In: Social & Legal Studies
Going for gold: Professionals’ perspectives on the design and implementation of transformative coercive control offences in Scotland and England and Wales, Bettinson, V., Munro, V., Burton, M. 25 Jul 2024, In: Criminology and Criminal Justice
Introducing a Criminal Offence of Domestic Abuse in Northern Ireland: Comparative Insights into Criminalising Coercive Control, Bettinson, V., McQuigg, R. 1 Jan 2024, Criminalising Coercive Control, London, Routledge
'It isn't just a shove': judicial understandings of domestic abuse and the challenges of recognising and responding to 'coercive control' in the criminal and family courts, Burton, M., Bettinson, V., Munro, V. 31 Jan 2024, In: Child and Family Law Quarterly
Preparing a Public Perception Study inn the use of Violent Resistance as Self-Defence in Domestic Abuse Cases, Bettinson, V., Crofts, T., Wake, N. 17 Sep 2024, Research Handbook on Domestic Violence, Cheltenham, Edward Elgar
'An Offence We Could All Do WIth Learning More About': Identifying and Responding to Coercion in Intimate Partner Relationships: Key Findings Summary Report, Bettinson, V., Burton, M., Munro, V. 4 Oct 2023
Criminalising coercive control: Challenges for the implementation of Northern Ireland's domestic abuse offence, Bettinson, V., McQuigg, R. 7 Aug 2023
Introduction, Bettinson, V., McQuigg, R. 7 Aug 2023, Criminalising Coercive Control, Abingdon, Routledge

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