Over the last five years, less than ten percent of reported sexual assaults have led to convictions, according to statistics gathered by the Women?s Resource Centre.

In fact, of 204 reported sexual assaults between 2000 and 2004, only 27 even resulted in court cases. ?If we really care about crime in Bermuda and against women in particular then we really should be concerned about these statistics,? WRC executive director Penny Dill said.

Sexual assault is traditionally an under-reported crime and these low conviction rates will do little to encourage victims of sex crimes to come forward, she added.

?Sexual assault is one of the few crimes where society prefers to focus the faults of the victim rather than the perpetrator,? Ms Dill said.

?Because in 80 percent of sexual assaults the perpetrator is known to the victim, and due to the stigma surrounding sexual assault, fear of insensitive reporting may lead survivors of sexual assaults to experience harassment, to be frightened into silence and/or to withdraw from prosecutions.

?If we add the impact of the low rate of conviction, this is in itself another factor. The Women?s Resource Centre wonders what has happened to the cases that are reported and don?t go to court.?

WRC gathered statistics from 2000 from the Bermuda Police Service about sexual assault reports, and compared these to figures of cases and convictions at the Supreme Court.

There were 35 reported sexual assaults in 2000, Ms Dill said, but only seven cases were heard in Supreme Court and three perpetrators were found guilty.

In 2001, there were 52 reported cases of sexual assault, resulting in six court cases and four convictions. In 2002 there were 46 reports, eight cases and five guilty verdicts.

While there were 31 sex assaults reported to Police in 2003, not one was heard in court. And in 2004, 40 cases were reported, six were heard in Supreme Court and there were four convictions.

?Bearing in mind that it may take two years for some cases to be heard in court, this is still an extremely low rate,? Ms Dill said. ?If we say that ten percent of those reported are thrown out due to insufficient evidence by the Department of Public Prosecutions, we are still showing a very small amount that result in a conviction.?

And these frightening statistics only reflect sexual assaults against adults, she added. When one considers sex assaults on children and cases of unlawful carnal knowledge the record may be even more damning.

The WRC was unable to track cases by their success rate. ?After checking with the Department of Public Prosecutions we were told that they do not publish any statistics and therefore we cannot track how many cases went to them and the success rate of those cases,? Ms Dill said.