Natasha Mulvihill

My research to date can be grouped under four cross-cutting themes: (1) powerful perpetrators; (2) faith and abuse; (3) domestic abuse and coercive control; and (4) the sex industry. 1. Powerful perpetrators of sexual violence and abuse, and institutional harm: I am interested in abuse of power, the relationship between authority and coercion, and identifying the dynamics and processes which enable institutional harm. I have developed work on 'high status/high public trust' professionals who perpetrate sexual violence and abuse, and how professional tribunals, panels and regulators respond. In November 2022, I was awarded a European Research Council Starting Grant. This project runs from November 2023 to October 2028. For more information, see here: Powerful Perpetrators. Through 2023-2024, I conducted research with Dr Fay Sweeting (Bournemouth) on women's experience of police-perpetrated domestic abuse and what happens when they report to the police. See related media coverage. At the end of 2025, Fay and I edited a special issue on police perpetrators for the International Journal of Police Science and Management. Dr Elspeth Van Veeren (Bristol) and I are currently editing the Routledge Handbook on Gender and Secrecy, which includes work on secrecy, silencing and institutional ignorance in relation to sexual violence. In 2022, I published a paper on doctor abuse, recognising the potential for sexual coercion and complicity within and between professional cultures. 2. Faith and abuse In 2024, I secured Zutshi-Smith funding with Dr Nadia Agtaie (Bristol) to hold an international symposium on the religious arbitration of marriages involving domestic abuse. In October 2024, we published a report on the symposium proceedings. We are guest editing a thematic issue for the Journal of Law and Religion (due for publication September 2026), comprising 9 papers, looking at Jewish, Muslim, Catholic and Sikh experiences. The symposium follows earlier ESRC-funded work (2015-2018) on justice responses to GBV, including religious arbitration. Through 2021 and into 2022, I worked on an Oak Foundation funded project looking at faith and coercive control. This included cases of religious leaders (a) as complicit in abuse and/or (b) as abusive intimate partners. 3. Domestic abuse and coercive control I am currently leading a UK Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) funded project (2025-2027)with Dr Mary Wakeham (Bristol) looking at animal abuse, domestic abuse and homicide. I am writing up research into non-consensual 'rough sex' (outputs 2026) and presented early findings at the annual IASR conference in July 2024 with Prof Nicola Gavey (Auckland, NZ) and Prof Debby Herbenick (Bloomington, US). I hosted leading expert Dr Samantha Keene (Wellington, NZ) here at Bristol in 2025. In addition, I have: Published with Dr Katie Winkle (Uppsala, Sweden) on robots, coercive control, domestic and sexual abuse - see our paper accepted for ACM HRI 2024. Published with Dr Jo Large (Bristol) on online dating harms and social media - see our paper in Social Media+Society (July 2025) and related media coverage. Contributed to volumes on (i) coercive control and (ii) sex work in popular song. 4. Sex industry I was co-author of 2019 Home Office commissioned report on prostitution and sex work (see media coverage in The Independent and The Guardian) and wrote a related book (2022). I have been academic adviser to the National Police Chiefs Council Sex Work Working Group since 2019, contributing to national policing guidance. Prospective PhD applications on the above topics are welcome. I am Chief External Examiner for the BSc Criminology (including Criminology and Sociology) programme at the University of Brighton (appointed until 2027) and alsoExternal Examiner for the MSc Investigative Forensic Psychology and the MSc Research Methods at Bournemouth University (appointed until 2029). I am a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy. Google scholar profile. ResearchGate profile.

[2024] Sexual and violent police perpetrators: the institutional response to reporting victims [2022] Professional authority and sexual coercion [2022] UK victim-survivor experiences of intimate partner spiritual abuse and religious coercive control and implications for practice [2026] Coercive authority and institutional harm [2026] Faith, feminism and gender based violence [2025] Police Perpetrators of Domestic Abuse [2025] The Use and Abuse of Animals by Perpetrators of Domestic Abuse Survey [2025] Sexual corruption