A PRIVATE school in Malvern has demanded an apology from a national newspaper after being named in an investigation into young Vietnamese immigrants who are entering Britain on student visas and then disappearing.

Abbey College in Malvern Wells says the report, in The Times newspaper on Monday, contained “sensationalising inaccuracies” and has demanded a written apology.

The Times' investigation claims a 15-year-old girl from Vietnam started at Abbey College in September 2017 and then failed to return to the school following that year’s Christmas break.

The girl was from the rural Quang Ningh province of the far eastern country, close to where many of the dead migrants found in Essex had lived.

The investigation names a number of boarding schools and private colleges across the country as well as Abbey College.

Abbey College head Malcolm Wood told the Gazette: “The Times article, which has been widely picked up by the national press, contained some sensationalising inaccuracies.

“Therefore, we have contacted The Times to demand a written apology for their article in which they made two factual assertions which were untrue in order to sensationalise their story:

“Stating that the girl in question was 15 years old despite the fact we clearly corrected them in writing long before publication stating, accurately, that the girl was 16 years old;

“Claiming that the girl in question went missing for over a year when in fact the girl in question was missing for less than four weeks. This 16-year-old student was in the UK on a valid visa. Whilst on her Christmas holidays, under the care of her parents and not the college, she went to a nail bar in Yorkshire and did not return to college at the start of term in January.

“We alerted the police, who found her within four weeks. Although suspicions of trafficking were raised, the police were not able to conclude that she had been trafficked.”