by British soldiers in Italy between September 1943 and December 1945. Various sources, including the Special Investigation Branch as well as evidences from Belgian reporters, said that rape and sexual harassment by British troops occurred frequently following the invasion of Sicily in 1943. [ 117 ] Although far from the scale of those committed by the Red Army, rapes on local women and girls were a common feature among British and Canadian troops during the last months of WWII in Germany. Even elderly women were targeted. Though a high-profile issue for the Royal Military Police , some officers treated the behaviour of their men with leniency. Many rapes were committed under the effects of alcohol or post-traumatic stress, but there were cases of premeditated attacks, like the assault on three German women in the town of Neustadt am Rübemberge, on 16 April 1945, or the attempted gang-rape of two local girls at gunpoint in the village of Oyle, near Nienburg , which ended in the death of one of the women when, whether intentionally or not, one of the soldiers discharged his gun, hitting her in the neck. [ 118 ] There were also reports of "sexual assault and offences" committed by British soldiers against children in Belgium and the Netherlands , when a number of men were convicted of these crimes while fraternizing with Dutch and Belgian families during the winter of 1944-45. [ 118 ] On a single day in mid-April 1945, three women in Neustadt were raped