GIRL power reigns supreme at what is believed to be the first women-only led legal practice in Worcester.

After dreaming of setting up their own practice, Worcester lawyers Susie Duncan and Judith Kenney have opened Duncan Kenney in Worcester's Foregate Street.

Miss Kenney, who previously worked for city solicitors Kieran & Co for 10 years, said: "I think we are going to try to bring our multi-tasking skills to this job.

"We'd been talking about it for a couple of years and the years slipped by, and... nothing ventured nothing gained.

"We want to be the authors of our own destiny.

"This is a very difficult time for criminal legal aid and we wanted to be much more in control of how we saw our future."

Miss Kenney said she hopes having two women at the helm will reassure female defendants, who may find their first court appearance traumatic.

Before becoming a lawyer Mrs Duncan, who worked at Worcester firm Hamer Childs for almost 10 years, was an officer for West Midlands police between 1980 and 1991.

"I started off in uniform and then I progressed to CID," she said.

"I think it gives you a more rounded view if you can see it from both sides."

Mrs Duncan was also a key witness in the highly-publicised 1997 case of Tracey Andrews, the woman who invented a road rage attack after stabbing her fiancé Lee Harvey to death in a road in Alvechurch, Worcestershire.

The incident happened outside Mrs Duncan's former home in December 1996.

The practice - which defends male and female clients - is based in Foregate Street and specialises in all criminal legal work, police station attendance, magistrates and crown court work, animal health welfare and more.