Naming The Harm in Full

A Scottish court finds prolonged domestic abuse was a significant factor in a partner’s death, setting a landmark precedent

On 27 July 2023, Kimberly Milne climbed over the barrier of a bridge above the A90 in Dundee and fell to her death. Nearly three years later, her estranged husband, Lee Milne, has been convicted of culpable homicide in a Scottish court.

He did not physically push her. But the court found that his sustained abuse was a significant contributing factor in her death. This is a landmark moment: the first jury conviction anywhere in Britain where prolonged domestic abuse has been found to make someone criminally responsible for a partner’s suicide.

A case built on pattern - not a single act

At the centre of the prosecution, led by the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service, was a question the justice system has often struggled to answer:

Can someone be held criminally responsible for a death they did not directly cause - but may have driven?

In this case, the answer was yes. But that answer wasn’t built on one moment. It was built on a course of conduct. Evidence presented in court showed months of sustained abuse - physical violence, coercive control, intimidation, and repeated breaches of bail conditions.

Witnesses described Kimberly “cowering” in public. CCTV captured distress and confrontation in the hours before her death. She spoke to professionals about “mental torture” and living in fear. Taken individually, these incidents are serious. Taken together, they form something more, a sustained environment of harm. The court accepted that this environment could not be separated from the outcome.

Coercive control - recognised in full

This case brings coercive control into sharper legal focus. Not as background. Not as context. But as something central. Coercive control often operates without a single defining moment. It builds - through repetition, pressure, and the gradual erosion of autonomy.

In Kimberly’s case, that included:

• Being shouted at, restrained, and assaulted

• Being isolated and made to feel responsible for her partner’s well-being

• Facing threats of self-harm if she tried to leave

• Living in a state of fear and instability

She tried to leave. More than once. What followed was escalation - a pattern widely recognised in abusive relationships, but still too often misunderstood in practice.

This ruling does more than acknowledge coercive control.
It recognises its cumulative impact over time - and that, in some cases, that impact can be fatal.

Moving beyond “why didn’t she leave”

Cases like this often become entangled in a familiar question: why didn’t she leave?

The reality is more complex. Leaving is not a single decision. It is a process - often a dangerous one. Threats escalate. Control tightens. Risk increases. Kimberly’s attempts to leave were met with manipulation and pressure. Her options narrowed, not expanded.

What this case does is shift the focus. Away from questioning the actions of the person experiencing harm - and towards examining the behaviour of the person causing it.

That shift matters.

Mental health - part of the picture, not the explanation

Kimberly had a history of mental health struggles. That was part of the evidence before the court. But it was not treated as a standalone explanation for her death. Instead, the prosecution demonstrated how those vulnerabilities were exploited.

That the abuse she experienced interacted with her mental state - intensifying it, shaping it, and contributing to a point of crisis. This is an important distinction. It resists a common framing where mental health is used to individualise harm - separating it from external factors. This ruling does the opposite.

It recognises that a person can be vulnerable, and still be harmed in ways that are legally - and criminally - relevant.

A shift in accountability - within a Scottish context

This conviction sits within Scottish law, under the offence of culpable homicide. It does not automatically change the legal position in England and Wales. But it does carry wider significance.

There has been a comparable case in England - involving Nicholas Allen -but it did not result from a contested jury verdict in the same way. That makes this ruling distinct. It demonstrates - in a courtroom, before a jury - that:

• responsibility can extend beyond direct physical acts

• harm can be cumulative and still meet a criminal threshold

• sustained domestic abuse can be recognised as a contributing cause of death

That is a meaningful shift, even beyond Scotland.

A wider conversation - quietly building

Across the UK, there is growing recognition of how domestic abuse operates in reality.

Campaigners and advocates - including voices like Sharon Holland - have long highlighted the cumulative nature of harm, and the need for systems to reflect that more accurately.

This case adds weight to that conversation. It provides a clear example of what it looks like when the full picture is examined - and when responsibility is not limited to a final act.

MYH reflection: naming what has always been there

For many, this ruling will not feel new. It will feel like recognition.

Recognition that harm can build quietly. That control can operate without being visible all the time. The impact of abuse does not end when the abuse becomes harder to see. What this case does is bring that into the legal frame.

It shows that patterns matter. That context matters. That cumulative harm matters. And that responsibility does not disappear simply because the final moment looks different.

This ruling cannot change what happened to Kimberly. But it does something important: it refuses to treat her death as something that happened in isolation - and places responsibility where it belongs.

Source: BBC News