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Divorcing abusive husband cost woman £105k - Published A woman who endured years of abusive controlling behaviour by her ex-husband says it has cost her more than £105,000 to divorce him. Annabelle Boucher, 48, from Somerset, wants the law changed after she paid £75,000 to David Rogers, 61, despite him admitting to coercive and controlling behaviour. She also had to pay her legal costs. "I thought being stuck in this relationship I couldn't get out of would be highlighted within the divorce procedure," Boucher said. "But the divorce law doesn't take into account the fact that he was a criminal." The Ministry of Justice (MoJ) said it had begun a consultation to reform the law so "family courts meet the needs of domestic abuse victims". Boucher, a mother from Chiselborough, said Rogers had come into her life in "a whirlwind" in 2017 and the pair got married two years later. It was once they were married that things started to "take a turn", she said, and "some very extreme behaviour started to happen". "It creeps up on you and you're in it, and so you don't kind of notice what is happening." Boucher said she had ended up "shutting down emotionally" and "cutting off from everyone" because she feared what would happen. "You find that you're trapped within a situation that you can't get out of." The abuse was reported to police and Rogers was arrested on 24 February 2024. The divorce was finalised in September 2025 while criminal proceedings were ongoing. In April 2026, Rogers pleaded guilty to coercive and controlling behaviour at Taunton Crown Court and was given a 20-month suspended prison sentence. Boucher said she knew there was going to be a financial split with the divorce, but added she had always kept her family home and Rogers had kept his. They had also paid bills separately. She ended up paying Rogers a lump sum of £75,000 and more than £30,000 in her own legal costs. "I cannot believe, in this day and age, in 2025, when my divorce was finalised, [criminal proceedings] do not have any implication at all," she added. Boucher said she had had to take out personal loans to cover the costs, which had been "crippling". "I should be paying off these figures for years to come, so I'm not going to be free of this situation for several years." 'Further punishment' Boucher said the law needed to "catch up with the times of now", adding: "I just think it's very sad that people that have been through far worse than this are still told that that has no relevance to the divorce proceedings they're going through, and I just think it's even further punishment for the victim." Olive Craig, senior legal officer for Rights of Women, a charity campaigning for the legal rights and safety of women, said divorce courts refused to really consider domestic abuse unless it passed "a very high threshold". "You're more likely to get a family court judge to take physical violence into account, but coercive control is often very insidious behaviour," she said. "It's often much more manipulative behaviour and family court judges, even within the legal framework, are effectively being told that they should consider that as irrelevant to the financial decisions that they make." - If you have been affected by any of the issues in this story, help and support is available at BBC Action Line Kit O'Brien, a family law specialist based in Taunton, said there was now a "massively changed recognition of the effect domestic violence can have during a relationship", but things still needed to change. "The changes that are being talked about are not going to mean that every incidence of bad behaviour is going to suddenly change the way that finances are resolved," she said. But she said it could mean "it's going to be approached in a way that is rather more reflective of society as it is now". An MoJ spokesperson said: "We recognise the devastating impact domestic abuse, including economic abuse and coercive control, has on victims during and after a relationship." The MoJ added it would consider all the responses to its consultation carefully "before finalising policy." Craig said she was "really pleased" the government was looking at options about the way domestic abuse should be considered in financial remedy proceedings. She added: "It should reflect the very real economic consequences of abuse and also prevent perpetrators from benefiting from their own abusive conduct." Get in touch Tell us which stories we should cover in Somerset Follow BBC Somerset on Facebook, external and X, external. Send your story ideas to us on email or via WhatsApp on 0800 313 4630. More stories - Published14 March 2025
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