The “Battered Woman” in Court: Comparative Insights from UK and Singapore Law

By Alyssa Tan and Chiara Ng

Editorial Committee + UKSLSS Essay Competition 2025 Submission

Introduction

Domestic violence has historically “disproportionately affect[ed] women and is disproportionately perpetrated by men. [1]” It is hardly contentious to say that criminal law’s treatment of defendants who kill their abusers has long been criticised for reflecting a male-centred conception of violence, which often disadvantages women in domestic violence cases.

This article examines the role of “Battered Woman Syndrome” (BWS) in the United Kingdom and Singapore comparatively. BWS, as articulated by Lenore Walker, is a phenomenon experienced by women who endure prolonged abuse by their partners. [2] Although BWS is not a standalone defence, UK courts have increasingly accepted evidence of BWS to mitigate the rigidity of the doctrine of provocation. This essay examines how UK courts have begun to integrate BWS into assessments of reasonableness and imminence, and contrasts this with Singapore’s approach, which remains largely untested in this context, and whether Singapore should consider following in its footsteps. Additionally, this essay critically evaluates whether BWS itself offers a genuinely feminist solution, or whether its medicalised and essentialising tendencies limit its potential.

Battered Woman Syndrome

The UK has taken a rather interesting approach by incorporating Lenore Walker’s ‘Battered Woman Syndrome (BWS)’ in an attempt to address feminist critiques. Walker sought to articulate “psychological explanation of the behaviours of women who are victims of domestic abuse [3]” and why many victims still chose to remain in abusive relationships. Victims were usually subject to multiple cycles following these three stages: (1) tension building where the woman attempts to calm the man down, (2) violence where the woman is battered, and (3) “loving contrition” where the man tries to reassure the woman that he loves her. [4] As a result of this “false hope [5]”, the victim would suffer a traumatic “learned helplessness” and be unable to leave. [6]

Although BWS is not an affirmative defence under UK law, evidence of BWS has been raised in various cases to contextualise the subjective loss of control and the objective standard of the “reasonable person. [7]” In cases like R v Smith [8], the House of Lords accepted that mental conditions affecting self-control can be relevant to the jury when assessing the reasonable degree of self-control.

However, feminist scholars such as Wells have cautioned that courts now formally accept BWS due to it being a recognised medical condition, which makes courts more willing to accept through expert testimony. [9] The framing of abuse through a clinical lens suggests that domestic violence is an extraordinary occurrence rather than part of a wider social problem. [10] It shifts interpretive authority away from the woman and towards experts, reducing her lived experiences. [11] While such categorisation is common across areas of criminal law, its use in this context risks narrowing the court’s understanding of domestic abuse by privileging clinical explanations over the woman’s subjective narrative that influenced her actions. Hence, courts should not overrely on BWS as this may obscure other reasons why victims may remain in abusive relationships, such as economic constraints, social expectations, or repeated failed attempts to leave.

Another issue from a feminist theory perspective is that admitting BWS evidence has a “essentialising and syndromising [12]” effect, reaffirming the perception that only mentally-disordered women would react in a certain way to abuse. This also means BWS could ironically reinforce stereotypes of women as passive, helpless, or irrational. Moreover, BWS can shift responsibility back onto the victim by portraying her failure to leave as a result of her mental incapacity rather than recognising other reasons that could make her escape unsafe or impossible. When painting the victim as passive through the lens of a mental condition, it sets a standard that other women in the same situation would have been able to escape, pinning the blame on the victim rather than the abuser. Additionally, BWS is contradictory, as it portrays the victim as powerless while is used to justify her capacity to kill. In this sense, the UK’s adoption of BWS is simultaneously progressive and limited, attempting to incorporate a feminist perspective by recognising BWS but doing so by fitting women’s experiences into a clinical model rather than revisiting the doctrinal assumptions that privilege male conceptions of violence.

By contrast, Singapore does not presently recognise BWS which appears increasingly out of step with the feminist approach adopted in the UK. Nevertheless, Chan Wing Cheong argues that the Singapore courts have allowed the defence to “make allowance for human nature” yet still expect regulations for one's reactions. [13] This is a cautious but discernible move away from their purely objective test. It also suggests that the courts only accept certain subjective influences on self-control within socially acceptable limits. Although Singapore has not adopted BWS, abused defendants can technically rely on existing doctrines such as self-defence. However, these provisions fail to grasp the realities of prolonged, coercive abuse on women. Self-defence typically requires an imminent threat, something many battered women cannot prove at the moment they finally retaliate. In this sense, Singapore risks perpetuating a male-centred understanding of reasonableness and self-control.

Therein lies the question of whether Singapore should follow the UK in incorporating evidence of BWS in its provocation defence. For all its feminist promise, BWS still has significant drawbacks within Singapore’s juryless criminal justice system and its Asian socio-cultural context. Addressing the latter, Yeo notes that Singapore has “remained open” to, accounting for the defendant’s cultural background when assessing their level of self-control. [14] This is justified because individuals’ behavioural tendencies are “molded” by their upbringing and traditions. [15] If the law already allows defendants to demonstrate that they belong to a community with a different threshold of self-control, the same logic could be extended to gendered differences. This may seem like a more feminist approach as women who experience long-term abuse do react differently to violence. However, this may reinforce damaging stereotypes about women. Yeo has retrospectively withdrawn his opinion as it could lead to racist stereotypes. [16] Gendering the term BWS may fall into the trap of essentialism, where women are seen as “the battered”.

Singapore’s reluctance to engage with BWS must also be understood within other socio-cultural contexts, particularly that the country strongly emphasises the preservation of “family values”. Amirthalingam recognises that “reform is impeded because domestic violence is still treated primarily as a family matter; and policies and laws are geared towards the preservation of the family unit. [17]” This exposes the larger issue that Singapore remains reluctant to “intrude” into domestic matters, as observed in Singapore’s initial failure to enact the Family Violence Bill in 1994. Resistance to feminist legal reform in Asian societies is often justified through asserting reform threatens “local cultural and social fabric. [18]” However, this argument is particularly concerning given the patriarchal undertone of Asian values. [19] If the state’s commitment to the family unit implicitly demands that women bear the burden of enduring abuse, then the law becomes complicit in entrenching such inequality. [20] Strengthening legal protections to prevent harm to women would promote the idea that a truly functional family unit cannot exist where violence is allowed [21]. Hence, Singapore should consider adopting feminist reforms such as recognising evidence of BWS in its provocation cases, as it would uphold Singapore’s values without reinforcing harmful gendered stereotypes.

An Alternative: Coercive Control Model

Noting the pitfalls of BWS, many scholars and the UK Law Commission prefer Evans Stark’s “coercive control” model. Coercive control conceptualises domestic abuse as “the degree to which coercive control has disabled a woman’s capacity to effectively resist or escape abuse” instead of “focusing on physical violence to assess the severity of abuse [22]” or “whether a victim’s actions were rational. [23]” Feminist scholars have long argued that the criminal law’s fixation on sudden, dramatic triggers ignores the reality of how abuse operates in intimate relationships which often wear down a victim’s agency to leave over time. This can be seen in R v Challen [24], where the absence or rarity of extreme physical violence did not mean that Sally Challen was not being abused. Instead, the court recognised that the “the cessation of severe violence indicated an escalation in coercive control, [25]” resulting in Challen’s response in killing her husband. Although BWS was used in relation to diminished responsibility not provocation in R v Challen, it still cements that the courts have shifted towards a more gender-sensitive understanding of violence. Hence, it remains persuasive that coercive control offers a more feminist explanation than BWS as it focuses more on the perpetrator’s conduct and the structural constraints the victim faces. In light of this, a more promising path for Singapore may be in embracing the recognition of coercive control.

Conclusion

It can be observed that both Singapore and the UK’s approach to women in domestic abuse cases enforce societal norms regarding gender and the family. The engagement of BWS by the UK shows an imperfect attempt to address feminist critiques, where it ultimately has the possibility of reinforcing gender stereotypes. However, in contrast to Singapore’s continued silence on the matter, the UK’s attempt to alter its legal system to adopt BWS shows a willingness for the legal system to continue to evolve.

References

[1] A O’Loughlin and others, Defendants as victims (2024) 14 to15.

[2] Lenore E. Walker, ‘The Battered Woman Syndrome’ (1979).

[3] Lenore E. Walker, “Battered women and learned helplessness” (1977) 2(3-4) Victimology 525; Lenore E. Walker, Terrifying Love: Why Battered Women Kill and How Society Responds (1989).

[4] ibid.

[5] Kumaralingam Amirathalingam, ‘A Feminist Critique of Domestic Violence Laws in Singapore and Malaysia”, ARI Working Paper, No. 6, July 2003, <https://ari.nus.edu.sg/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/wps03_006.pdf> 6

[6] ibid (n. 35)

[7] R v Ahluwalia [1992] 4 All ER 889

[8] R v Smith [2000] 3 WLR 654

[9] S. Sheehy, J. Stubbs, and J. Tolmie, ‘Defending Battered Women on Trial: The Battered Woman Syndrome and its Limitations’ (1992) 56 J Cr L 369.

[10] ibid.

[11] ibid.

[12] Celia Wells, ‘Provocation: The Case for Abolition’ (2000) 

<https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198299158.003.0004> accessed 3 December 2025.

[13] R v Smith [2000] 3 WLR 654, supra note 29 [678] (Lord Hoffman)

[14] Stanley Yeo, “Ethnicity and the Objective Test in Provocation” (1987) 16 Mel U LR 67; “Power of Self-Control in Provocation and Automatism”, supra note 31

[15] ibid.

[16] ibid.

[17] Kumaralingam Amirathalingam, ‘A Feminist Critique of Domestic Violence Laws in Singapore and Malaysia”, ARI Working Paper, No. 6, July 2003, <https://ari.nus.edu.sg/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/wps03_006.pdf> 16

[18] Chan Wing Cheong, ‘The Present and Future of Provocation as a Defence to Murder in Singapore’, Singapore Journal of Legal Studies [2001] 453 - 474 <https://ari.nus.edu.sg/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/wps03_006.pdf> 26

[19] Asian Human Rights Charter, Article 9.2

[20] Kumaralingam Amirathalingam, ‘A Feminist Critique of Domestic Violence Laws in Singapore and Malaysia”, ARI Working Paper, No. 6, July 2003, <https://ari.nus.edu.sg/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/wps03_006.pdf>

[21] ibid. 26

[22] Evan Stark, ‘Current Controversies: Coercive Control’ in C Renzetti, J Edleson & R Bergen (eds), Sourcebook on Violence Against Women (3rd ed 2018).

[23] Julia Tolmie et al., ‘Social Entrapment: A Realistic Understanding of the Criminal Offending of Primary Victims of Intimate Partner Violence’ (2018), 204-205.

[24] R v Challen [2019] EWCA Crim 916

[25] Evan Stark, “Diminished responsibility or justifiable homicide? The case of Sally Challen” in R M McPherson (ed), Women Who Kill, Criminal Law and Domestic Abuse (2024) 14.