NSW Police officers have received coercive control training. This is ...

When a woman in Scotland got a curry delivered to her door, she was terrified. 

She was the victim-survivor of a controlling, abusive relationship and had moved several times to escape her perpetrator.

They had somehow continued to find her address, sending her food ahead of every family court date. 

Dr Emma Forbes remembers a woman whose ex-partner harassed her by regularly ordering curry to her address.(Reuters: Phil Noble)

"Every time there was a date, a fast food delivery arrived at her door. It was something, and it was nothing," Dr Emma Forbes, a senior Scottish prosecutor, told NSW Police officers.

The woman felt embarrassed calling police about a curry deliver, she said.

"But the reason he was able to send her those curries was because he had hacked into her [streaming] account, and had all her passwords, and could access everything in the house and was monitoring." 

It is a story told thousands of times across many jurisdictions of men using coercion and control to frighten and intimidate women. 

Dr Emma Forbes (left) and Katrina Parkes (right) has been sharing her insights and expertise on addressing coercive control with NSW Police.(ABC News: Lia Harris)

Scotland is widely considered a leader in the prosecution of domestic violence and coercive control, which has been criminalised there since 2018.

Dr Forbes used the example when talking to a room of senior NSW police officers who have just completed training on coercive control.

The training was implemented by NSW Police over the last 10 months ahead of the act becoming a criminal offence on Monday. 

Shifting police investigation 'mindset'

While the New South Wales and Scotland criminal and court systems are different, experts say NSW Police can learn from the Scottish approach. 

In Scottish law, there must be two independent sources of evidence to prove that a crime was committed, and that the accused was the person responsible. 

In the case of coercive control, prosecutors can use the witness statement from the victim-survivor as one source, and a series of controlling behaviours presented in the context of each other as the second source.

Coercive control has been criminalised in Scotland since 2018.(Supplied: Scottish Government )

That could include witnesses overhearing a heated argument, abusive texts, financial evidence or circumstantial evidence, like someone seeing a perpetrator fleeing from a scene. 

Dr Forbes said investigators collected the evidence to "tell a story" of abuse. 

"What we need to do is find the golden thread of coercive control going through the behaviour and it is described as a single offence of a course of conduct," she said. 

She said coercive control was a pattern of behaviour.

"It's a continuing offence, it is not one incident and shifting police investigation mindset, which is part of the police training is really key."

Dr Forbes attributes proactive policing to the 85 per cent conviction rate for coercive control in Scotland.(ABC News)

There is an 85 per cent conviction rate for coercive control in Scotland, which Dr Forbes attributed to proactive policing.

Police recognise a victim is at high risk and they look back at previous partners and find other victims who are willing to come forward.

"So when you have one woman's voice or one victim's voice it is difficult to prove an offence like this, but many together create an echo and it's really effective."

Tragic case a lesson in collecting evidence

Fawziyah Javed was a 31-year-old British lawyer who died when her husband Kashif Anwar pushed her off a cliff in Scotland. 

She was pregnant with their first child at the time, and Anwar was later found guilty of murder and sentenced to life imprisonment.

In the months leading up to her death, Ms Javed contacted police to give a detailed account of the coercive and controlling behaviours she was subject to by her husband.

In 2021, Fawziyah Javed was killed by her husband.(Getty Images: Jane Barlow/PA Images)

Katrina Parkes works for the Scottish High Court for Sexual Offences and said the report showed he was going through her phone, taking money from her account and being physically abusive. 

"Because everything was logged, we could tell the court, tell the jury, about everything he did in their relationship," she said. 

She said the evidence was able to "paint a picture" of the abuse.

The police reports played a key role in the court case. 

Dr Forbes said prosecuting coercive control crimes was about showing the story in full, not as isolated incidents. 

"We include the whole story in the charge, and we do not need to prove every single aspect of behaviour," she said. 

"Domestic abuse is not an incident, it is a continuum, and it something that people live every day." 

Hannah Clarke subjected to rules that amounted to coercive control

The parents of Hannah Clarke, who was murdered by her estranged husband Rowan Baxter in 2020, also spoke to the contingent of NSW Police officers ahead of the change in law. 

Ms Clarke, 31, her daughters Aaliyah, 6, and Laianah, 4, and her son, three-year-old Trey, died after Baxter jumped in their vehicle with a petrol can and set it on fire in a suburban Brisbane street.

The horrific death prompted the Queensland government to pass Hannah's Law, which criminalised coercive control. 

Lloyd Clarke, Hannah's dad, said there were signs of abuse which he now knows were coercive control. 

Both Sue and Lloyd Clarke urged NSW police officers to be aware of the signs of abuse.(AAP: Jono Searle)

"Hannah's perpetrator did have anger issues, and we didn't think anything of it because lots of people with anger issues overreact when they get angry," he said, 

Hannah's family and friends have described a number of rules Hannah was subject to during the relationship, including not being allowed to wear pink. 

They said Baxter would ask the children who their mum had spoken to during the day, and where she had been. 

"Even though his demands made us all uncomfortable, we didn't know it was a sign of true danger," Mr Clarke said. 

Hannah's mum Sue Clarke urged police to believe victim-survivors and talk to family and friends as they seek to establish a pattern of control. 

"Because it is a gradual pattern of behaviours, it creeps up on you," she said.

"I tell women I know to keep a diary of incidents, a time and a place. Friends also often keep evidence, like texts. It paints a picture."

Mr Clarke said police are the first line of defence for domestic abuse survivors. 

"Back then the DVO was all Hannah had to protect her. She had so much hope on that DVO," he said. 

"Today, coercive control is a stand alone offence.

"We didn't get to keep our Hannah.

"But Hannah's is a story of hope, hope that now that we know what we know, potential victims of domestic violence and coercive control do not have to face what she faced."