"The first instance ... was being chased down the road with a knife in his hand, being punched... having boiling water thrown at me.

"There was one time, when he did not like the channel being turned over, that he broke my finger."

A year into the relationship, as her birthday gift, he kept her hostage at gunpoint. She locked herself in her room and called police.

"They did not seem to take it particularly seriously. I could hear him joking with the police."

The futility of calling the police made it even harder for Mrs Smith to leave – her boyfriend often pointing out that they would not do anything for her, even if she called them.

Mrs Smith's evidence gave a human face to the more detailed criticisms of the system that would come later in the day.

Chris Casey, a senior lawyer at the Loddon Campaspe Community Legal Centre, described court infrastructure that was not built to cope with domestic violence cases - a lack of private interview rooms, the inability to separate the victim from the person they were trying to get an intervention order against.

"It's not unusual to feel eyes burning into the back of your head and look up and then on the next level is a respondent staring at you and the victim," Mr Casey told the Commission.

Eventually, Mrs Smith found the courage to seek an intervention order from a court. To get it, she discovered she needed to argue her case before a judge - and cross examine her ex.

"To this day I cannot even recall what I said. I just went to jelly, I was in complete shock."

With no evidence, and with Mrs Smith struggling with the cross-examination, the intervention order was dismissed.

"I left the courtroom in a state of trauma, I was just balling my eyes out. It was at this time the court support worker actually found me. And at this time I saw my ex-partner... and his lawyer leaving court and they were high fiving and laughing and making derogatory comments about this."

Mrs Smith's traumatic experience is hardly unique, Dr Melanie Heenan, executive director of Court Network later told the Commission.

"It's organised chaos. There are women sitting on the floor... trying to find an alcove where they are sitting out of the line of sight of the respondent. The idea of them having to be there for the whole day only dawns on them as the morning slips away."

*Not her real name✓

For help in a crisis call 000. For help or information regarding domestic violence call the Sexual Assault, Domestic Family Violence Counselling Service 1800 737 732. Online you can visit www.1800respect.org.au.