Police have reviewed six rape cases after the way they were originally handled was criticised by inspectors.

Inspectors said police were wrong to decide that no crime had taken place in the six cases and remove them from crime statistics.

A Sussex Police spokesman told The Argus its subsequent “detailed review” to check no leads had been missed had not led to any of the cases being re-opened.

She said: “As a result of the HMIC inspection, six rape cases were subjected to a detailed review to ensure the investigation was thorough and that no investigative lines of enquiry had been missed. Following the review, none of the six cases were reopened.”

The cases were picked up by Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary, which sampled the force’s records from 2012 and 2013 as part of a nationwide report into crime recording.

They examined 72 ‘no-crime’ records, referring to incidents initially reported as a crime but subsequently deemed not a crime based on extra information.

Thirty of those records were for rape and, in their report published last week, inspectors said six “should have remained classified as crimes”.

Fabia Bates, director of sexual abuse charity Survivors Network, said hers and other rape crisis centres had long been concerned about ‘no-criming’ rape cases.

She said: “While there are examples of excellent responses from Sussex Police, there are still too many occasions when someone reporting rape is subject to a level of scepticism in a way that doesn’t happen with other crimes.

“This is indicative of a society that does not believe victims, which has significant impacts on both reporting rates and people’s ability to recover.

“I would also be concerned that if a report is not recorded as a crime, then the individual concerned would not be referred to services such as ours for support.”

Sussex Police said that “in reaching a no-crime decision victims would have been treated as victims” and received appropriate support from police and outside agencies. Sussex Police’s Force Crime Registrar personally decides whether rape cases can be no-crimed.

Other crimes are dealt with by the crime management unit.