The woman's treatment has raised serious questions about the actions of police and prosecutors, and the lengths they should go to when trying to force vulnerable victims to give evidence against perpetrators.

A magistrate has threatened to refer the case to the Human Rights Commission, and the woman's lawyer, Tom Taylor of Ben Aulich and Associates, has slammed the "most disappointing" way his client has been dealt with.

Police say they are conducting an internal review, while prosecutors – who had argued the woman be held in custody over Christmas – have reiterated the difficulties of securing convictions when victims change or retract their evidence.

The victim, meanwhile, says she and her children have been left seriously traumatised by her experience with the justice system.

The case all stemmed from a triple-0 call made in January last year. The woman told the operator her partner had struck her in the face in front of her children, and threatened to torch them alive inside their house.

He was charged and scheduled to face a hearing in the ACT Magistrates Court in August last year, but the complainant did not attend, calling the court to say she knew of the proceedings, but was in hospital with a child sick with pneumonia.

The hearing was pushed back to November, but a second subpoena was never sought or issued, despite police knowing she was reluctant to give evidence and unlikely to attend.

She failed to appear again, and a magistrate issued a warrant for her arrest.

Police turned up on her doorstep on a Saturday afternoon in early December, when she said she was putting up her Christmas tree with her children.

The timing of the arrest, just after the only weekend bail hearings, meant she was kept in custody for two nights before she could eventually be put before a court on Monday.

Police charged her with failing to appear, an offence that can attract six months behind bars. When she first appeared after two nights behind bars, prosecutors opposed bail, arguing she was unlikely to attend court if released again.

That would have meant she was held in custody over the Christmas break, her lawyers say for roughly six weeks until her ex-partner's hearing.

The presiding magistrate, Peter Dingwall, was incredulous, telling prosecutors he planned to refer the case to the ACT Human Rights Commissioner.

"You don't see the bizarre nature of that?" he asked, when they announced their opposition to bail.

"She's the complainant in a family violence matter and the suggestion is she's going to be locked up in the [Alexander Maconochie Centre]."

"Are we trying to reduce the trauma to family violence victims or increase it?"

Prosecutors have since dropped the charged of failing to appear, saying it was not in the public interest to pursue it, and Mr Taylor is currently pushing for the DPP to pay his client's court costs.

Now, questions have emerged about the validity of the first and only subpoena that legally bound the woman to attend court.

Mr Taylor is arguing the court order appears to have been handed to her violent partner, instead of her, and the woman says she never saw it.

"In times when our community is determined to tackle the scourge of domestic violence it is most disappointing to see what [name removed] has been through," Mr Taylor said in a statement.

The woman told a court earlier this year that she felt "tortured" by her treatment, and had made the complaint against her former partner so he could get help for his drug problems.

"I have been more traumatised by this event," she said. "I went to police for help and I have been treated really poorly and I just wanted [to get] my family help."

DPP Jon White said considerations about the trauma of victims played an important role in deciding how to prosecute family violence matters.

But he said the ACT's family violence intervention program – a pro-charge, pro-arrest policy giving powers to courts to compel victims to give evidence – had been hugely beneficial to victims.

"In this matter, the complainant did eventually give evidence and the defendant was convicted," Mr White said.

"This demonstrates the enormous value of the FVIP, as, notwithstanding the victim's reluctance to proceed, which is a well-documented theme among victims of domestic violence, the offender was ultimately convicted and made to answer for his conduct," he said.

The matter is due back in the ACT Magistrates Court for an argument about court costs on Wednesday.