A rape crisis project which had its grant taken away has protested it never knew the reason until it was too late.

The project in Brighton gave evidence to a scrutiny panel looking at the way in which Brighton and Hove City Council dealt with grant applications last year.

Karen Leenders, director of the Brighton Rape Crisis Centre, said it had to close after not getting the grant.

She told the panel yesterday: "We received no funding whatsoever from the council and we were totally dependent on it."

The project complied with the new system of assessing grants by the council which included using a points system to assess the merit of each project before a final decision was taken.

Ms Leenders said: "We didn't know the council was not happy with our child protection policy. We were not told about it originally. We heard it later via The Argus.

"We appeared to have missed the main point which was the reason for closing us.

"We were made aware there was a points system but it was never completely clear what the relationship was between the score and the final verdict."

Ms Leenders said there was miscommunciation between the project and the council.

She said: "I have to protest strongly about the comments of David Panter (council chief executive) in The Argus about our child protection policy. They were misleading and factually inaccurate."

The panel, chaired by mayor-elect David Watkins, was holding its last public session before producing a report to the council.

Also giving evidence were Krazy Kat Theatre Group and Councillor Don Turner, Cabinet councillor for regeneration, who handled the grants process.

Although the council granted the same total sum to organisations, some gained more and some received less than before while others got nothing at all.