We have come a long way, fortunately, since the days when the police used to regard an altercation between man and wife as "a domestic" and hesitated to become involved. The time when a man was master in his own home, free to knock his wife or girlfriend about a bit if he chose to do so, has passed into the annals of social history.

There are still too many men who adopt that attitude, though. Last year there were 1,400 incidents of domestic violence reported in the Bradford South police division alone, and 23,000 in the whole of West Yorkshire.

The difference now is that the police do become involved and actively encourage victims of domestic violence to report incidents to them. And there is support for the women if their treatment has been so bad that they feel it necessary to move out of their home into a refuge.

The problems with that arrangement, of course, is that the women have to leave the home and area they know, and their children have to change schools and abandon friends and sometimes pets. The victims end up paying twice over.

The new scheme being launched in the Bradford South division with a £430,000 government grant to help women and children to stay put in their own homes is an interesting attempt to reverse that unjust situation. It will not work for every woman, of course. Some may feel so fearful that a refuge remains the best option.

But in many cases this different approach could make all the difference to the future prospects of Bradford's battered women and their children.