The government has a zero-tolerance approach to domestic violence.

But lawyers express fears that such a stance does not address serious concerns about access to legal aid

Every minute, police in the UK are called to a domestic violence incident; every week, two women are actually killed by violent partners or ex-partners.

Faced with such statistics, the government, Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) and police have espoused a zero-tolerance approach.

Amid new zeal for tackling the problem, a Domestic Violence, Crime and Victims Bill is going through Parliament, aimed primarily at toughening sanctions and plugging loopholes, while a report on five specialist domestic violence courts, released this week, says they work well and should be developed more widely.

But solicitors and voluntary groups at the coal-face disagree over the authorities' strategy and priorities.

Meanwhile, defence lawyers are indignant about accusations in another official report that they routinely intimidate complainants, use delaying tactics in court, and generally aggravate the situation (see [2004] Gazette, 26 February, 4).

'Violence at Home', a joint report by the Crown Prosecution Service Inspectorate (CPSI) and HM Inspectorate of Constabulary - published last month - revealed that only 5% of domestic violence cases result in a conviction.

Attrition - the collapse of cases through witness retraction and evidential failings - was identified as a major obstacle.

If enacted, the Domestic Violence, Crime and Victims Bill will make breach of a non-molestation order a criminal offence, punishable by five years' imprisonment on indictment.

But according to family lawyer Alison Burt, a family law partner at Bindman & Partners in London, limited access to legal aid is the real problem, denying victims easy access to civil remedies.

Ms Burt says: 'The problem is not so much with the legislation, but with getting access to a lawyer who can do publicly funded work.

There are so few firms that are offering this sort of work now.

It's not profitable and it's not seen as particularly complicated.

It's seen as something that a junior fee-earner rather than a partner should be doing.'

She describes legal aid financial eligibility tests as 'quite stringent', as applicants must be on income support or an equivalent benefit.

If legal aid is refused, 1,000-2,000 is a 'pretty conservative estimate' for the cost of obtaining a privately funded injunction, she says, as cases are often prolonged when the respondent cannot be found for service of papers.

Once in court, procedures for obtaining injunctions are efficient, but there may then be problems with enforcement.

'There isn't really any consistency,' Ms Burt says.

'In committal proceedings for breach, it's difficult to predict how the judge will react.

There's still an idea that a non-violent breach isn't to be taken that seriously.

'Also, there isn't uniform practice among police forces in exercising powers of arrest attached to injunctions.

Responses are variable - if they haven't seen the breach, or the respondent isn't around, they often won't act.'

Working in such an emotionally charged area of law can be stressful.

'Some of these cases are matters of life and death,' Ms Burt says.

'Someone's life could be in danger if you don't act quickly.

That's enormous pressure.

But it can also be uplifting if you see someone being given the protection they need.

That's enormously rewarding.'

Ranjit Kaur, director of voluntary organisation Rights of Women, agrees that wider access to legal aid is needed.

Prosecuting aggressors is not what many victims want - they want immediate protection, she says.

'We believe that if the government is committed to dealing with domestic violence, as it professes to be, one way is to give women free access to legal aid for injunctions,' she says.

'Many women don't want to take criminal sanctions against their partners, for a variety of reasons.

What they want is for the violence to stop.

They don't necessarily want the person punished through the criminal system.'

Victims sometimes fail to qualify for legal aid, Ms Kaur suggests, only because of money or assets tied up in a joint venture with the person against whom they seek protection.

Social stigma may also deter victims from speaking out, she says.

A 'sense of loyalty, despite what's happened' may be another factor.

Domestic violence accounts for a quarter of all violent crime in England and Wales.

The sample of cases for the CPSI's report revealed that 78% involved abuse by partners - who were not the only miscreants.

Some 9% of incidents involved abuse by an adult against children, 3% involved sibling abuse, and 0.5% abuse of the disabled.

The CPSI also found that 1.5% of cases involved violence towards men and there were many instances of men making counter-allegations of violence against women complainants.

Melanie Loram, a family law legal executive at London-based firm Lawson-Cruttenden & Co, represents many men in such proceedings.

In her view, they may need protecting just as much as women.

Allegations made in affidavits are often unreliable and difficult to prove, she says, and if children are involved, courts 'nearly always favour the mother'.

Ms Loram says: 'It's a very difficult area, particularly when you are depriving someone of a roof over their head, which is essentially what it's about.

'Judges have to err on the side of caution and tend to grant injunctions.

A man paying rent is often banned from seeing his kids and sometimes can't even visit the street where he used to live.

Often there isn't much evidence, but he can protest "it wasn't me" as long as he likes.'

Ms Loram, who handles both county court and High Court cases, recently acted for a professional man with a small child, who was escorted from his home by police following allegations by his partner.

'I would lay money on it that he never laid a finger on her,' she says.

'It was just her way of getting him out of the house.

It was cheaper than other routes.

She's now sold it and he has no idea where the child is.

I genuinely don't think he was capable of hurting her.'

She adds: 'I know some of these women need protecting, but making allegations is too damned easy.

Some of the men actually need protecting against the women.'

With attrition a significant factor, the CPS is working to new guidelines to ensure a determined and uniform approach nationally.

This has caused friction with defence lawyers, who are accused of being obstructive in a review of domestic violence cases, commissioned for the CPSI.

The review said: 'A common tactic by the defence seems to be to advise clients to postpone their plea in the hope the victim will withdraw support in the interim...

Tactics by the defence include coercive questioning and intimidation tactics, minimising and denying the violence, exploiting dynamics and myths about domestic violence and capitalising on the victims' social isolation.'

It adds that the close relationships defendants often appear to have with their legal representatives may add to a victim's sense of isolation and betrayal.

But Rodney Warren, chairman of the Law Society's access to justice committee and director of the Criminal Law Solicitors Association (CLSA), dismisses these charges.

'I've never heard so much nonsense,' he says.

'What it points to is a fundamental misunderstanding.

A defence lawyer isn't some useful adjunct of the justice system, to play a role for society.

'The sole purpose of a defence lawyer is to represent the interests of the defendant.

It doesn't matter what the nature of the case is.

That needs to be understood.

However much we feel that domestic violence needs to be addressed and reduced, the first thing we have to do is to stop blaming the lawyers.

It's extraordinary how this comes about.'

He adds: 'If we can't get this straight, there isn't much hope of being able to address domestic violence itself, it seems to me.'

CLSA chairwoman Helen Cousins has similar views.

While she accepts that domestic violence is 'a hidden and terrifying problem', she is critical of prosecutors' one-size-fits-all policies.

She says: 'You can understand why the CPS takes what I consider to be a heavy-handed approach, but what they are doing is prosecuting irrespective of the wishes of the complainant.

The woman may say she's now reconciled, but the prosecution will still summon her as a witness.

If she doesn't turn up, they will issue an arrest warrant.

I don't think it achieves what they are seeking to achieve.'

She recalls two cases she defended earlier this month, in which the attitude of the CPS surprised her.

'Both defendants knew their partners weren't going to turn up as witnesses,' she says.

'Both were breaching bail by living with them and were applying to lift the bail conditions, and in both cases, the women had consented to that.

But the prosecution objected.

They are creating a much more angst-ridden situation.'

Bail conditions were lifted in one case and the other was adjourned for referral to a police domestic violence co-ordinator.

In relying heavily on such co-ordinators, Ms Cousins, senior partner at Leeds-based Cousins Tyrer, claims the CPS is failing to use its own discretion and is insufficiently independent of police.

A CPS spokesman says research shows victims are likely to have endured as many as 35 attacks before calling police, and guidance to prosecutors specifies that the safety of the victim is paramount.

'The safety of the victim may require that the case proceed even when she indicates that she does not want it too,' he says.

'We are sensitive to this and the prosecution have to perform a balancing act between her wishes, the safety of the woman and any children, the safety of any future victim, and holding the perpetrator accountable.'

On defence tactics, Mr Cousins says 'no comment' interviews are a proper device in the police station to prevent police obtaining confessions; often the best available evidence if a complainant is ambivalent about supporting proceedings.

Similarly, she says it is entirely appropriate for lawyers to advise a 'not guilty' plea in court if the complainant is unlikely to attend as a witness.

Personally, she would draw the line at advising a 'not guilty' plea when the offence has been fully admitted in interview, but she suggests even that is arguably a 'proper, if unpalatable approach'.

Ms Cousins, who sits as a deputy district judge in criminal cases, also disputes that defence lawyers intimidate witnesses in court.

'I have never seen that in 20 years of practice,' she says.

'If anyone tried it, they would be stopped immediately.

These cases fall to pieces for good reasons, not because defence counsel intimidate witnesses.'

The new CPS policy, she says, has produced a situation where three domestic violence trials are being listed in the same court at the same time because it is expected that two of the complainants will not turn up.

The CPS spokesman says: 'Triple-listing of cases is at the discretion of court staff, not the CPS.

Prosecutors work closely with police but are independent and before a case proceeds against the wishes of a complainant, it is always reviewed by an experienced prosecutor.'

Ms Cousins suggests a better approach would be to ask suspects to consent to attend anger-management and rehabilitation programmes as an alternative to being charged.

While she says persistent offenders should be 'pursued with all vigour', she says a distinction needs to be drawn for first-time offenders.

Treating all cases the same is counter-productive.

'I don't want to be seen as unsympathetic,' she adds.

'Ongoing domestic violence must be dreadful - I can't imagine what it's like living with that.

But I do not believe the way we are dealing with it is helping.'

The Law Commission is shortly expected to report on possible reform of homicide law in the context of domestic violence.

Harriet Wistrich, a solicitor at London-based Birnberg Peirce & Partners, who in 1991 co-founded the feminist campaign organisation Justice for Women, says reform is needed to end perceived discrimination against women under the Homicide Act 1957.

She maintains that women deserving of jurors' sympathy are often convicted of murder rather than manslaughter because the existing law is gender-biased.

'There's discrimination because of the nature of the defence to murder and the way the law doesn't take into account the historical balance of power between men and women,' she says.

'It doesn't allow for a sophisticated understanding of what drives people in murder situations.'

In particular, she reckons the requirement to prove 'loss of self-control' to establish provocation favours jealous boyfriends and dishonoured patriarchs, whereas battered women can rarely afford the luxury of anger.

'They become experts in controlling their emotions, learning to second-guess their violent partner's every response,' she says.

'When such women are driven to the edge and kill, their dominant emotions are usually fear or despair, not exactly a loss of self-control.'

The impact of homicide reform could be widely felt.

'It would have a real knock-on effect,' says Ms Wistrich.

'The kind of thinking behind it would filter through to the rest of the criminal justice system.

Homicides are rare but I think it may help enlighten thinking across the board in terms of offences against the person and the cases dealt with every day by magistrates' and county courts.'

As lawyers and legislators continue to wrestle with the intangibles, some local authorities are backing a scheme that gives people real, physical protection in their own homes.

Piloted in the London boroughs of Harrow and Greenwich, the Sanctuary Project provides secure rooms, within their own homes, where victims can retreat from violent ex-partners until police arrive.

But to what extent can the issue of domestic violence be properly addressed when the lawyers - who represent the interests of the alleged perpetrators and victims - see so much fault in the status quo?

Nigel Hanson is a freelance journalist

- Anyone wanting advice on domestic violence may contact Rights of Women, tel: 020 7251 6577, or Refuge's 24-hour helpline, tel: 0808 2000247.