Key takeaway:

In Vacek & Novosel (No 5) [2026] FedCFamC2F 261, a Sydney judge found that a husband had used spyware, criminal violence, government agencies, and the court system itself as instruments of coercive control in family law proceedings. The pattern included what is now recognised as litigation abuse — the strategic misuse of court applications to exhaust, intimidate, and control. It affected both the parenting orders and the property settlement in concrete, documented, and quantifiable ways, including through the application of the Kennon principle. The principle recognises that family violence can make one party’s contributions to a relationship significantly more arduous. This case matters to anyone who has experienced control that goes beyond a single incident and runs through every part of a shared life.

Introduction

Most people think of family violence as something that happens in a moment — a raised fist, a broken plate, a shout that goes too far. But for many people, the experience is different. It is a sustained pattern. The courts have a name for it: coercive control in family law.

In more than 25 years of practising family law, I have seen coercive control cases from every angle. They are among the most complex matters I handle. The pattern is invisible to everyone except the person living it. Isolated incidents look minor. The controlling dynamic is what matters. And courts find it notoriously hard to prove.

Vacek & Novosel (No 5) changes that. The case is one of the most thorough published judicial analyses of coercive control in family law to come out of an Australian court. The judgment reaches a finding of coercive control across five separate dimensions — including litigation abuse. It traces that control into the proceedings themselves.

This article explains what happened, what the court found, and what it means for anyone navigating a family law matter where control — not just isolated violence — is the real issue.

The Background

The parties married in 2016 through an arranged marriage conducted overseas. The wife arrived in Australia aged 24. He was thirteen years older — an established healthcare professional who owned property. She depended on him for her visa, housing, income, and social connections. She knew almost no one.

Their daughter X was born in 2020. The parties separated in January 2023. By March 2025, the matter had run through nine interlocutory applications, two review applications, two enforcement applications, and a 42-page agreed chronology containing — in the court’s description — almost no agreement.

By that point, the husband had also remarried. He had concealed this from the court until June 2025.

What Is Coercive Control in Family Law?

Coercive control in family law does not start with a single violent act. It is a pattern — often invisible to outsiders — built to subordinate another person’s autonomy. This can include surveillance, isolation, financial control, threats, and the deliberate use of systems or agencies as weapons. Coercive control can also include litigation abuse: the misuse of court proceedings as a mechanism of intimidation, financial exhaustion, and ongoing control.

Section 4AB of the Family Law Act 1975 (Cth)

The section defines family violence broadly enough to capture this kind of sustained controlling behaviour — not just physical violence. The 2024 amendments sharpened this further. Courts must now expressly consider how family violence affected a party’s contributions and future circumstances.

Coercive control in family law is particularly hard to establish in proceedings. Individual incidents often look minor in isolation. The pattern is what matters. And because much of the behaviour happens in private, a victim’s account frequently stands alone.

Vacek & Novosel establishes the pattern emphatically — across multiple independent grounds, with documentary evidence, with a criminal conviction, and with specific findings about the timing of each act.

What the Court Found

Surveilance

In September 2016, the husband purchased spyware. The wife had not yet arrived in Australia. His email account held screenshots proving the purchase.

The husband had also made a $39.69 purchase. He called it a spyware installation. It was spyware-detection software.

Hidden cameras appeared in the family home in 2018. Post-separation, the husband used toll records, professional network enquiries, and court subpoenas to track his wife. The court found that disclosure processes — tools designed to help parties share financial information — became surveillance instruments in his hands. This early, sustained pattern of coercive control in family law began before the relationship even started on Australian soil.

Physical Violence

The court found physical assaults on at least two occasions. A plate-breaking incident in November 2022 appeared on video. The husband, under cross-examination, admitted it constituted family violence. A January 2023 assault produced a criminal conviction for common assault and property destruction. That conviction survived appeal. Judge Beckhouse adopted the Local Court findings directly.

Litigation Abuse and the Deployment of Every System He Could Find

This is where Vacek & Novosel makes its most important contribution to the law — and where the title of this article comes from.

The court found that the husband systematically deployed police, the Department of Communities and Justice, psychology services, and the court system itself at strategically chosen moments. Practitioners and researchers now call this litigation abuse: the weaponisation of legal and institutional processes designed to protect people, which are instead turned into instruments of control.

X was withheld for five days — immediately after the husband appeared in the Local Court on assault charges. Two days after orders required her return, he arranged an unauthorised psychological assessment of X. Later, he complained to DCJ about the child’s dirty feet at changeover.

FCFCOA

The husband appealed the parenting orders while also applying to have them varied. He filed a review application while an appeal was pending concurrently. The husband filed applications that the court later characterised as relitigating issues already decided. On the litigation abuse analysis, none of these acts sought to resolve a genuine dispute. Each one was a strategic deployment of a process to exhaust the other party.

Taken alone, none of these acts would necessarily constitute coercive control in family law. Together — in their timing and choreography — they established the pattern. The court was explicit: the litigation did not respond to a genuine dispute. It continued control by other means.

“The Court did not require each act to be independently severe. What mattered was the pattern, the timing, and the forensic opportunism — conduct designed to subordinate the wife’s autonomy, impose cost, and secure bargaining leverage.” — Judge Beckhouse, paragraph 215

The H Street Property

Perhaps the most brazen single act in the judgment concerns the H Street property.

Court orders required the net sale proceeds to sit in a trust account. The husband directed the bank to apply $368,288 of those proceeds to his own residential mortgage instead. By the time anyone noticed, $2,770 remained in trust.

The court found contempt of court. It also found another example of the same controlling pattern: using whatever mechanism was available to extract benefit and impose cost on the wife at her most vulnerable.

What the Judgment Actually Decided

Parenting Orders

The court awarded sole parental responsibility to the mother. Joint consultation — even requiring the father to consult before major decisions — would give him another mechanism to continue coercive control in family law proceedings. In this context, joint decision-making was not a neutral arrangement. It was a vulnerability.

X lives with her mother. She spends four nights per fortnight with her father, plus holiday blocks of five consecutive nights.

Section 68B injunctions prevent the father from approaching the mother’s home or workplace, questioning X about the mother’s personal life, or seeking psychological intervention for X without the mother’s consent.

Property Settlement

The total asset pool reached approximately $4.2 million across four properties in three states. The court divided it 55% to the wife and 45% to the husband, plus a superannuation splitting order of $100,000 from the husband’s fund.

Husband’s initial contributions — real property he owned before the marriage — meant the contributions assessment initially favoured him, roughly 55/45.

The Kennon principle

Then the court applied the Kennon principle from Kennon & Kennon (1997). This principle allows a court to adjust contributions where one party’s family violence made the other’s contributions more arduous. A person subject to coercive control in family law proceedings cannot contribute on equal footing with their partner. The principle recognised this directly.

The wife’s contributions suffered substantially from the litigation abuse used as a tool of control. Her health care studies stalled, career development slowed. The wife’s credit rating suffered. Responding to applications, reviews, and enforcement actions consumed time she would otherwise have spent building her own position. These actions did not seek to resolve disputes; they sought to exhaust her.

A 10% adjustment in the wife’s favour under s 75(2) of the Family Law Act followed. This reflected earning disparity, primary caregiving, the husband’s non-disclosure, and the deliberate diversion of the H Street proceeds. The final outcome: 55/45 to the wife.

In family law, the finding of coercive control did not rest on a single incident. It rested on the accumulation — and that accumulation propagated through every aspect of the case. The litigation abuse finding was not separate from the family violence finding. It was part of it.

Why This Case Matters

Australian courts have historically focused on discrete incidents of physical violence. Coercive control in family law — and its specific subset, litigation abuse — is harder to prove. It requires a court to step back from individual acts and see the pattern: the deliberate, sustained, choreographed effort to subordinate another person’s autonomy using every available system.

Vacek & Novosel names the pattern.

It documents the timing. It draws a direct line from the pattern to the outcome — in both the parenting and property decisions. Three things make it significant.

• Courts now recognise litigation abuse as a form of coercive control in family law. Applications at strategic moments, agency complaints timed to coincide with enforcement proceedings, and subpoenas used for surveillance — all of these can form part of the coercive control pattern. Ten years ago, courts were rarely alert to this. They are now.
• The Kennon principle extends to post-separation litigation abuse. A history of coercive control — including through the proceedings themselves — can affect the property settlement, not just the parenting orders. This is a real tool, available when the evidence supports it.
• The judgment provides a template. Judge Beckhouse maps the timing of each act in the litigation against the procedural milestones.

In my practice, I see the pattern of litigation abuse regularly — a client dragged through application after application, whose financial position has eroded systematically, whose time has disappeared into agency complaints made at strategic moments. Vacek & Novosel gives practitioners and clients a judicial framework to name what is happening and hold the perpetrator accountable.

What This Means If You Are Living This

If you recognise the pattern described in this case — the surveillance, the institutions turned against you, the litigation abuse designed to exhaust rather than resolve — there are things you can do.

• Document everything. Coercive control in family law builds from patterns, not single events. Keep records of applications, complaints, and communications. Note what was happening in the proceedings each time a new complaint appeared. The choreography is the evidence.
• Tell your lawyer about the litigation abuse — not just the incidents. A skilled family lawyer knows how to present coercive control in a family law case to the court. But they need the full picture: the timing, the sequence, the strategic opportunism, not just the most recent event.
• Know that the court is watching. Applications relitigating decided issues, strategic complaints, technically correct but functionally punitive enforcement proceedings — courts now recognise these as litigation abuse and as coercive control. Vacek & Novosel proves this.
• Understand the property implications. Where coercive control in family law proceedings — including litigation abuse — has made your contributions more difficult, the Kennon principle may apply. This is not automatic. It needs evidence and argument. But it is real.

How We Can Help

Consort Family Law regularly acts for clients in matters involving coercive control in family law, litigation abuse, and complex parenting and property disputes. Our clients include people in circumstances directly comparable to those in this case.

Is coercive control in family law or litigation abuse affecting your matter? Contact Consort Family Law for a confidential consultation — call (02) 7252 0444 or book a 30-minute consultation with Catherine at consortfamilylaw.com.au

Frequently Asked Questions

What is coercive control in family law, and do Australian courts recognise it?

Coercive control in family law is a pattern of behaviour designed to subordinate a person’s autonomy — through surveillance, isolation, financial control, threats, and the misuse of institutions and proceedings as weapons. Australian courts recognise it. Findings of coercive control can affect both parenting orders and property settlements. Section 4AB of the Family Law Act defines family violence broadly enough to capture sustained controlling behaviour, not just physical violence.

What is litigation abuse and how does it relate to coercive control in family law?

Litigation abuse is the misuse of court proceedings as a tool of control — filing applications at strategic moments, relitigating decided issues, making agency complaints timed to impose maximum disruption. Courts now recognise litigation abuse as part of the coercive control in family law pattern, alongside surveillance, physical violence, and financial control. Vacek & Novosel is one of the clearest published judicial statements on this point. Courts treat it directly when assessing parenting and property outcomes.

Can I get sole parental responsibility if my ex has engaged in coercive control?

Possibly, yes. In Vacek & Novosel, the court awarded sole parental responsibility to the victim of coercive control in family law. The court found that joint decision-making would hand the perpetrator another mechanism for harassment, delay, and control — another form of litigation abuse. Every situation differs, and outcomes depend on specific facts. A specialist family lawyer can advise you on the prospects in your case.

What is the Kennon principle, and how does it affect my property settlement?

The Kennon principle, from Kennon & Kennon (1997), allows a court to adjust the contributions assessment where one party’s family violence made the other’s contributions more arduous. If coercive control in family law proceedings — including litigation abuse — disrupted your work, study, or financial position, that can flow through to the final property division, even if the overall pool size stays the same.

What evidence do I need to prove coercive control in family law?

Coercive control in family law cases build from patterns, not single events. Useful evidence includes communications records, the timing of applications and complaints, police reports, medical records, bank records showing financial control, and records of third-party interventions. In Vacek & Novosel, spyware purchase records, hidden camera evidence, a criminal conviction, and a chronology mapping litigation timing against procedural milestones all mattered significantly. A specialist family lawyer can help you identify and preserve what counts.

Does litigation abuse after separation affect my property settlement?

Yes — and this is one of the important clarifications from Vacek & Novosel. The Kennon principle applies to post-separation contributions as well as contributions during the relationship. Where coercive control in family law proceedings — including litigation abuse — continued after separation, the court considers the whole picture, including how the proceedings themselves were conducted.

How long do these kinds of cases take?

Cases involving coercive control in family law, litigation abuse, contested parenting, and property disputes can be complex and time-consuming. Vacek & Novosel ran for several years before the final judgment in March 2026. Early legal advice — focused on documenting the coercive control pattern and managing the litigation abuse strategically — makes a significant difference to both the timeline and the outcome.

Ready to talk?

Book a confidential 30-minute consultation with Catherine Heath.

Call (02) 7252 0444  |  consortfamilylaw.com.au  |  North Sydney, NSW

About the Author

Catherine Heath

Catherine Heath is the Principal Solicitor at Consort Family Law, a boutique family law firm in North Sydney, NSW. She has practised exclusively in family law for more than 25 years and holds Fellowship of the International Academy of Family Lawyers (IAFL) — a credential held by fewer than 100 family lawyers in Australia. Her practice regularly covers coercive control in family law, litigation abuse, parenting disputes, and property settlements, including cases that mirror the facts in Vacek & Novosel.

consortfamilylaw.com.au  |  North Sydney, NSW  |  (02) 7252 0444

Sources and further reading

Vacek & Novosel (No 5) [2026] FedCFamC2F 261 (AustLII)

Section 4AB of the Family Law Act 1975 (Cth) — definition of family violence

Kennon & Kennon (1997) FLC 92-757 (AustLII)

Consort Family Law — Parenting Disputes

Consort Family Law — Property Settlements

Consort Family Law — Family Violence

This article is general information only and is not legal advice. If you are dealing with coercive control in family law or litigation abuse, contact Consort Family Law in North Sydney for a confidential consultation — call (02) 7252 0444.