Montreal: Charges will not be filed against six police officers accused of sexually assaulting indigenous women in Quebec, although officials are not ruling out that the events occurred, prosecutors said on Friday.

A spokesman for the prosecutors said there was not enough evidence to take the police officers to trial over accusations of sexual assault, abuse of power and intimidation brought forth by women in the small town of Val d’Or, about 500 kilometres (300 miles) northwest of Montreal.

According to the women, who came forward a year ago on broadcaster Radio-Canada, officers routinely picked them up from Algonquin communities near the rural town and forced them to perform sex acts.

Some were paid in cash or drugs. If they refused, the women said they were physically assaulted or left in remote areas, their mobile phones broken, to walk home in the cold.

Eight officers were suspended following the accusations, although two have since been reinstated.