A court dedicated to handling incidents of domestic violence has been launched in Nottingham.
The specialist domestic violence court sits at Nottingham Magistrates Court and deals with pre-trial reviews, case management and sentencing.
The aim is to help survivors understand the court process and encourage more people to report domestic violence by seeing an end result at court.
There are 6,000 reports of domestic violence every year in Nottingham.
The specialist court forms part of a wider strategy to cut incidents of domestic violence in Nottingham and allows police, probabtion service and advice agencies to work together.
Jane Lewis, domestic violence policy officer for Nottingham City Council, said: "Survivors of domestic violence are being encouraged to take the perpertrators to court and just by getting to the specialist court, it shows that the crime is being taken seriously."
The pilot project is said to be working well according to Chris Cutland, director of Women's Aid advice centre.
Ms Cutland said: "I think this a great project becasue this is a multi-agency way of working together and it means domestic violence is being seen as a crime which is very important for survivors and perpertrators."