Professor Mandy Burton’s research is in the fields of criminal law, criminal justice, family law and policy. Much of that research has examined the legal responses to domestic abuse. She is author of two monographs on that subject (Legal Responses to Domestic Violence, Routledge, 2008 and Domestic Abuse, Victims and the Law, Routledge, 022), and co-editor of an international Research Handbook on Domestic Violence and Abuse (Edward Elgar, 2024).
Mandy’s research is primarily socio-legal and empirical in nature. Much of her research is policy relevant and has been carried out for various government departments and public bodies, such as the Home Office and Ministry of Justice. She is committed to research which has impact beyond academia. Alongside Professor Rosemary Hunter, she was one of three academic members of the ‘Harm Panel’, set up by the UK government to report on how allegations of harm, including domestic abuse, are dealt with in family law cases relating to child arrangements. The fundamental reforms recommended by the Panel were accepted in full by the government and changes to both the law and legal processes have been made:
Since the publication of the Panel’s report, she has been working with Professor Hunter on a pilot of a Family Court Reporting and Review Mechanism, commissioned by the Domestic Abuse Commissioner. A report on the mechanism and findings from the three pilot court sites will be published later in 2025.
Mandy is a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (FHEA) and has more than two decades experience of teaching undergraduates and postgraduates on Law and research degree programmes, having previously taught at the Universities of Manchester and Leicester.
Mandy is a Level 5 qualified Professional Coach and is committed to coaching for development; helping colleagues unlock their full potential.
Professor Burton undertakes socio-legal feminist scholarship on gender-based violence. She has published on a variety of topics related to this, including: domestic abuse as a human rights issue, gendered defences to domestic homicide and vulnerability in the legal process.
In addition to her work on family justice, Mandy has written about the slow evolution of the understanding of ‘domestic abuse’ in the criminal law, with a focus on physical abuse and limited recognition of coercive controlling behaviour. Some of her recent articles (co-authored with Profs Bettinson and Munro) compare the approach of judges, police and prosecutors to the relatively new offences of coercive control in Scotland and England and Wales. These articles also examine the use of coercive control as a defence/basis for liability for homicide where the victim commits suicide.
Mandy is interested in police and prosecution decision more generally. She has been part of two research teams commissioned by Government departments to carry out detailed studies of criminal case progression. The first study, commissioned by the MOJ, involved analysis of a large sample of rape, sexual assault and serious violence cases. It was designed to scrutinise the obstacles to case building and prosecution and make recommendations for ‘best practice’. The report was published in 2012-Understanding the progression of serious cases through the Criminal Justice System research paper
Recently, she has collaborated with researchers in the department of Criminology at the University of Leicester on a similar study that will be published later in 2025.
As mentioned in her main profile, Mandy is also collaborating with Professor Hunter and researchers in the Office of the Domestic Abuse Commissioner on a report on the Family Court Reporting and Review Pilot, to be published in autumn 2025.
Mandy has more than two decades experience of teaching undergraduates on LLB programmes, specialising in Criminal Justice, Criminal Law and Family Law. She has taught two specialist modules on Criminal Justice, one on Policing and Prosecutions and another on Criminal trials and Appeals. She has previously co-authored a leading text-book on Criminal Justice (Sanders, A., Young, R., & Burton, M. (2010). Criminal Justice. Oxford University Press) and relevant chapters of Cownie and Bradney’s English Legal System in Context (F. Cownie, A. Bradney and M. Burton, Oxford University Press, 2013).
Mandy is committed to delivering research inspired education. As such, she teaches legal responses to domestic abuse to UG students studying family law. She has used a case note method in teaching and assessment. She has taught by example, writing case notes on key family court decisions for family law students to study (Burton, M. (2022) Revisiting fact-finding in child arrangement cases where there are allegations of domestic abuse. Journal of Social Welfare and Family Law, 44(3) 414-17; Burton, M. (2021) What can go wrong in child arrangement proceedings where there are allegations of domestic abuse? Journal of Social Welfare and Family Law, 43(3) 471-474.
Mandy teaches research ethics and research methods to postgraduate students. She is the co-editor, with Professor Dawn Watkins of Research Methods in Law (Routledge, 2010, 2017). The book, which is aimed at research students and early career researchers, examines a variety of different methodological approaches through the lens of a single topic- lay decision making in legal systems. In the first two editions, Mandy wrote a chapter on ‘Empirical Approaches’, examining the decision making of magistrates and juries. The third edition of the book will be published in August 2025, and includes new chapters, including one by Cownie and Burton on ‘Biographical Approaches’.
Professor Burton has successfully supervised and examined PhD students on a variety of topics in the fields of criminal justice and family law, including:
- The treatment of vulnerable and intimidated witnesses - Malaysia- A comparison with England and Wales
- Jury trials – Canada
- Divorce law reform – Malta
- Sharenting and the protection of privacy
- Burton, M. (2024) Policing Men, Policing Women: Responsibility and Accountability for Violence Against Women and Girls, Including Domestic Abuse and Femicide Journal of Gender, Sexuality of the Law, 3(1) 31-48.
- Burton, M, Bettinson, V, and Munro, V. E (2024) 'It isn't just a shove': Judicial understandings of domestic abuse and the challenges of recognising and responding to 'coercive control' in the criminal and family courts. Child and Family Law Quarterly, 36(1) 39-57.
- Burton, M, Bettinson, V, Richardson, K and Speed A (eds) (2024) Research Handbook on Domestic Violence and Abuse (Edward Elgar)
- Burton M. (2023). Policing Domestic Abuse: No 'freedom-day' for victims of coercive and controlling behaviour. In Ed Johnson (Ed.) Covid-19 and Criminal Justice: Impact and Legacy in England and Wales, Routledge.
- Burton, M and Hunter, R (2023) Reforming the approach of the family courts in child arrangement proceedings involving allegations of domestic abuse. In M Maclean and R Treloar (eds) Research Handbook on Family Justice Systems. Edward Elgar Publishing.
- Burton, M. (2022) Domestic Abuse, Victims and the Law, Routledge.
- Burton, M. (2022) Falling through the fault lines: Victims experiencing poor and fragmented legal responses to domestic abuse in England and Wales. In S Maxwell and S Blair (Eds), The Justice System and the Family: Police Courts and Incarceration. Emerald Publishing Limited.
- Burton, M. and Bettinson, V. (2022) Domestic abuse and child arrangement proceedings: identifying and assessing the risk of harm, including coercive and controlling behaviour. Child and Family Law Quarterly, 34(1) 3-20.