The UK’s reputation as a refuge for the most vulnerable has taken a battering following reports of how up to 10 girls, one as young as 12, were raped by male members of their school rugby team.

What makes the reports especially poignant is that two of the girls, who were allegedly assaulted, suffer from learning difficulties. One of the girls was only 12 when she was taken into a forest near the school and assaulted by a gang of five schoolboys. She is now suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder.

Her mother has been quoted in the Sunday Times newspaper as saying, “She can’t sleep. She can’t use the bathroom because she thinks someone will look in through the window, she can’t sit with her back to the front door. She won’t go out after dark because she sees shadows waiting to pounce on her. My daughter always had problems but she was never like this before.”

The other girl, now 15, is described as being on the “autistic spectrum”. She was sexually assaulted by a boy two years ago and subsequently treated for vaginal injuries. She was also allegedly forced to have oral sex and groomed for sexual encounters after sending naked photographs of herself via mobile telephone to boys at the school.

Her mother was quoted as saying, “She’s a shell of who she was. She walks around the house with cuddly toys. She sleeps with the lights on…She suffered a vaginal injury and the school did not think to tell me.” Fee at the school is £3,000 per month (Rs 2.4 lakh) and the school itself was previously classified as outstanding by the government’s schools inspection service. Since then, an emergency inspection service has concluded that the school failed to meet several national minimum standards for safeguarding pupils.

A specialist tribunal concluded that the school had failed to protect the 15-year-old girl from grooming and abuse by male pupils.

A spokesman for the school said, “The case that gave rise to the tribunal was distressing, complicated and unusual, and in no way illustrative of the way the school normally meets the needs of its pupils. It is a specialist school for children with dyslexia, dyscalculia, and dyspraxia, though some of the pupils have additional special needs, and has consistently been rated outstanding. The school deeply regrets that it failed the pupil, Miss C, and immediately wrote to apologise to her at the end of the tribunal. The other case is unrelated to Miss C, and the current claims vary significantly from the records of what took place when the incident was first reported in 2011.

“The school has met with the Department for Education and has submitted a detailed action plan concerning how it is remedying the issues highlighted by the tribunal. It has engaged outside experts and acted swiftly and transparently at all times to ensure that there can be no repeat of the circumstances that led to the tribunal.”

It is not just women in the UK who suffer such assaults. Men are also vulnerable. Earlier this month, the Sheffield Crown Court sentenced 20-year-old Jordan Sheard to three-and-a-half years in prison for the manslaughter of an 18-year-old boy who suffered from Asperger’s syndrome, a speech impediment and epilepsy.

Sheard was present at the gay teenager’s 18th birthday party when he scrawled obscene and homophobic insults on his stomach, face and forearm before dousing him with tanning oil which was then set alight.

Some social analysts explain the rising graph of sexual violence in the UK to the easy availability of violent videos that inspire equivalent violence in the homes and on the streets of British cities. Others say sex-related crimes are a global phenomenon and need to be seen in a global context.

The reports of horrific sexual assaults in the UK, however, come at a time when India has been highlighted as an especially dangerous country for foreign women travellers.