The police and public prosecution department are failing to process even more sex crime cases than they were, despite €15m in extra funding, according to television current affairs show Nieuwsuur.

Since 2014 the police have had a target of dealing with 80% of all sex-related complaints within six months. However, in 2018 they only managed to process 66% of cases and by the first nine months of last year this had fallen again to 51%, Nieuwsuur said.

The public prosecution department, which has the same target, is doing even worse. In 2018, it managed to clear just 36% of sex crimes within six months, and last year the figure fell to 34%.

A spokeswoman for the public prosecution department told Nieuwsuur that it was very unhappy about the figures. ‘We cannot deal with the number of cases we get in with the number of officials we have,’ she said.

In total, 808 sex-related cases have now been pending for more than six months.

‘In 2021 we registered more than 900 additional sexual assault incidents than on average,’ a spokesman for the national police force said. ‘The approach to sexual assault cases has become more complex and labour-intensive, mainly because there are more digital investigation options.’