Love or Lure is built on three bodies of research: how grooming and control work, why they work, and how people learn to protect themselves.
The seven stages come from four kinds of evidence:
Interviews with offenders, in which they describe how they choose and win a person.
The accounts of survivors of grooming, trafficking and coercive control.
Police and court findings on the loverboy method.
Academic studies that compare many cases.
Across very different cases the same pattern appears: selection, access, trust, isolation, pushing limits, control, exploitation.
Part 2 rests on established psychology:
Every person needs to be valued and included.
Each small yes makes the next one easier.
Affection that comes and goes creates a stronger pull than steady affection.
Hurt followed by comfort creates a powerful attachment to the person who causes both.
The mind defends what it has already invested in.
A person’s freedom to choose is narrowed little by little.
Research on prevention shows that information raises knowledge. Protection comes when people also rehearse what to do, focus on people they know and trust, and have enough time to practise. Love or Lure is designed around these three conditions.
Its teaching methods come from research on how people learn: recall from memory, comparison of similar cases, discussion with peers, rehearsal, and “if, then” planning.
Love or Lure begins with its first pilot in November 2026. Every delivery includes anonymous surveys before the programme, at the end, and three and six months later. Results will be published on this page as they are measured.
A full list of sources is available on request.