How to prove financial abuse: loans she never took out

The legal issue

A mother of two left her partner after years in which he controlled all the money. They had never married. Her child benefit went into a joint account, but he had changed the online banking password and kept the only card, gave her a weekly allowance and demanded receipts. After she moved out, a debt collection agency wrote to her about a loan she had never taken out. He used handovers to press her about the debts and said the children should live with him half the week. With our guidance she started proceedings for a child arrangements order, setting out the financial abuse on her C1A form. He denied everything, said she had agreed to the loans, and asked for shared care. The judge ordered a fact-finding hearing.

The law this rests on

• Domestic Abuse Act 2021 s.1(2): behaviour of one person towards another is domestic abuse if both are aged 16 or over, they are personally connected, and the behaviour is abusive.
• Domestic Abuse Act 2021 s.1(3)(c) and (d): abusive behaviour includes controlling or coercive behaviour and economic abuse, and it does not matter whether it is a single incident or a course of conduct.
• Domestic Abuse Act 2021 s.1(4): economic abuse means any behaviour that has a substantial adverse effect on a person's ability to acquire, use or maintain money or other property, or to obtain goods or services.
• Domestic Abuse Act 2021 s.2(1)(e) and (f): people are personally connected if they are, or have been, in an intimate personal relationship, or each have, or have had, a parental relationship to the same child.
• Domestic Abuse Act 2021 s.3(2): a victim of domestic abuse includes a child who sees or hears, or experiences the effects of, the abuse and is related to either person.
• FPR Practice Direction 12J para 2A: domestic abuse has the same meaning as in the Domestic Abuse Act 2021, and the paragraph sets out sections 1 and 2, including economic abuse.
• PD12J para 19(c): the court considers whether the key facts in dispute can be set out in a schedule or table giving details or examples of specific events and of any pattern of coercive and controlling behaviour, to help the judge consider the alleged abuse as a whole rather than as single incidents, focused on the issues to be tried and setting out what the respondent says in reply. This wording applies from 5 January 2026 (Practice Direction Update No. 6 of 2025).
• PD12J para 19(f): the court considers whether documents are needed from third parties, such as the police or health services, and gives directions for them to be obtained.
• PD12J para 29: the court should, wherever practicable, make findings of fact as to the nature and degree of any domestic abuse established and its effect on the child, and must record its findings in writing in a schedule to the order.
• PD12J para 36(3): the court should make an order for contact only if it is satisfied that the physical and emotional safety of the child and the parent the child lives with can, as far as possible, be secured before, during and after contact, and that the parent will not be subjected to further domestic abuse.
• PD12J para 37(c): where abuse is found or admitted, the court should consider whether the parent is motivated by a desire to promote the child's best interests or is using the process to continue a form of domestic abuse against the other parent.
• PD12J para 38: where abuse has occurred but the court considers direct contact safe and beneficial for the child, it should consider what directions or conditions are needed, including whether contact should be supervised.
• Children Act 1989 s.11(7): a section 8 order may contain directions about how it is to be carried into effect and impose conditions that must be complied with by a parent of the child to whom the conditions are expressed to apply.
• FPR 3A.2A(1) and (3): where it is stated that a party is, or is at risk of being, a victim of domestic abuse carried out by another party, the court must assume that the quality of their evidence and their participation are diminished, and must consider whether participation directions are needed. Under 3A.2A(2) the party can ask for the assumption not to apply.
• FPR 3A.8(1)(a) and (b): the measures include those that prevent a party or witness from seeing another party or witness, such as a screen, and those that allow a party or witness to take part in hearings and give evidence by live link.
• Credit files (ICO guidance): you can ask any credit reference agency for a copy of your credit file free of charge; the three main agencies are Equifax, Experian and TransUnion; when a joint account is closed you can write to them to ask for a disassociation from the other person.
• Subject access requests (ICO guidance): you can ask an organisation for copies of your personal information, and organisations usually have one month to respond.
• Report Fraud (GOV.UK, 4 December 2025): Report Fraud, a new service from City of London Police, replaced Action Fraud as the national service for reporting fraud and cyber crime, at reportfraud.police.uk.
• Standard of proof: as the parent making the allegations, the mother had to prove each one, and the judge asked of each whether it was more likely than not.

How we approached it

We advised her to prove her case from records he had not written and could not change. She asked each of the three main credit reference agencies for her free credit file, which showed two loans and a credit card she had never opened and a financial link to him through the joint account. She reported the accounts to Report Fraud and to each lender's fraud team.

We helped her send each lender a subject access request for the application details. Two applications gave his email address and mobile number, and the card application was made on a day her hospital discharge letter showed she was on a maternity ward after the birth of their younger child. We advised her to keep the original phone, print his messages about money with their dates and edit nothing, and to keep every collection letter, which showed the arrears began while he controlled every account.

We helped her limit the schedule of allegations to three: the debts in her name, the joint account and his control of everyday money, each with the documents behind it. Her witness statement took the judge through each account with its credit file entry, application record and messages, and we prepared her for the question she dreaded: why she had never checked her credit file before. She answered that he had always opened every letter about money. We also advised her that if a lender would not release an application, she could ask the court for a direction for that lender's records.

The outcome

In his reply to the schedule, the father accepted that he had filled in the forms but said she had agreed. The judge preferred the records and found that he took out the loans and the card in her name without her agreement, shut her out of the joint account and controlled the household money. Together that was economic abuse and part of a pattern of coercive control, and the findings were recorded in writing.

At the welfare stage the court considered whether he was using the case to continue the abuse, and refused his request for shared care. Satisfied that the children and their mother could be kept safe before, during and after contact, the judge ordered direct contact with conditions. The children live with their mother, staying with their father on alternate weekends and for half the school holidays, with every handover done by her brother so that he and the mother never meet, and messages between them limited to the children, never the debts, on a parenting app. By then two of the three lenders had accepted the accounts were not hers. Outcomes depend on the evidence; nothing here is a promise.

What to take from this

• Between people aged 16 or over who are personally connected, such as former partners, economic abuse is domestic abuse under the Domestic Abuse Act 2021 s.1(2), s.1(3)(d) and s.1(4): behaviour with a substantial adverse effect on a person's ability to acquire, use or maintain money or property, or to obtain goods or services.
• Whoever alleges abuse has to prove each allegation on the balance of probabilities, meaning more likely than not. Lender and credit agency records, which the other person did not write, carry real weight.
• Your credit file is free from each credit reference agency. Check all three main agencies, then ask each lender for the application details with a subject access request.
• Report accounts you did not open to Report Fraud and to the lender, and keep every collection letter. If a lender will not release an application, ask the court for a direction for its records.
• Keep the handset and original documents, and edit or delete nothing. Read your order for any direction about documents and the dates your schedule and statement are due.
• If you are frightened of facing the other parent, ask the court early about special measures, such as a screen or a video link. Never post about the case online, and keep it out of your conversations with the other parent.
• Once a joint account is closed, you can ask the credit reference agencies to remove the financial link.