Rape acquittal 'a disincentive to report'

The quashing of serial rapist Adrian Bayley's conviction over an attack on a sex worker will be a further disincentive for those in the industry to report crime, a Victorian advocacy group says.

A sex worker identified Bayley as the man who raped her in 2000 after seeing his photo in a Facebook post about Jill Meagher, who he raped and killed in 2012.

The Court of Appeal overturned Bayley's conviction for that rape in St Kilda because the identification evidence risked unfair prejudice.

Jane Green from Vixen Collective, Victoria's peer-only sex worker organisation, said Wednesday's decision comes just months after a Melbourne real estate agent was cleared of raping and imprisoning a sex worker in a vacant house.

"It's another disincentive," she told AAP.

"It says even when you go ahead and do this (make a complaint) you won't get a good outcome."

Ms Green said because sex work was regulated in Victoria - rather than decriminalised or outlawed like in other states - seeking justice could become complicated for many workers who do not comply 100 per cent with the rules.

Case law also left sentencing judges open to seeing rape against sex workers as a lesser offence, she said.

Sue White, general manager for Inner South Community Health in St Kilda which runs the Resourcing Health and Education in the Sex Industry program, said there was a greater acknowledgement of rape against sex workers.

However, because sex work was only legal in certain circumstances in Victoria, it was still problematic for workers to report attacks, she said.