A decline in the number of sexual assault prosecutions was concerning and work had begun to understand the fall, the ACT's Director of Public Prosecutions said.
Shane Drumgold SC on Tuesday said the number of finalised matters handled by his office had increased across the board except in sex offences, but he was unsure of the cause.
"I'm working with the police to try to find that out at the moment. I've had a number of meetings with the chief police officer and with various members of [the sexual assault and child abuse team]. We're looking at that at the moment. It is a concern," Mr Drumgold told an ACT budget estimates hearing.
Finalised matters handled by the DPP had increased about 13 per cent in the last reporting period, ahead of the 3 to 4 per cent increased predicted in the office's business plan.
"We've seen most sectors increase with the exception of sex matters, which had 13 trials which were down seven on the previous year," Mr Drumgold said.
Domestic violence cases had also grown by more than 10 per cent in the last reporting period, along with an increase in the number of trials across all matters.
"Finalised matters, we've seen grow by more than 700, which is a growth of 13 per cent, which is well ahead of our projected growth of 3 to 4 per cent, but as I say there's a clear dip in sex offences, with 13 in the reporting period, down seven from the previous reporting period," Mr Drumgold said.
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Mr Drumgold said he intended to be very public with the explanation for the reduction in sex offence matters.
Sexual assault trials and conviction rates in the ACT have plummeted over the past five years, despite an increase in reports to victim services and police.
ACT Attorney-General Shane Rattenbury in March promised work will start on reforms to offer better support to victim-survivors.
There were 230 sexual offence trials in the ACT in the five years from 2010-11 to 2014-15, figures in ACT Director of Public Prosecutions annual reports showed.
But in the following five years there were just 105 trials. This was despite 2667 reports of sexual offences to police during this period, according to figures from the recent ACT Policing annual report.
