The managing editor of Rolling Stone Will Dana has announced that he will step down several months after the magazine was forced to retract a story about an alleged gang rape at the University of Virginia.

Its story, "A rape on campus: A brutal assault and struggle for justice at UVA," relied heavily on one source, 'Jackie' who claimed that she had been raped by seven men in at the Phi Kappa Psi fraternity house in 2012 at the university.

After the publication the veracity of the story was questioned, The Charlottesville Police Department found no evidence to suggest that the rape took place.

The magazine was subsequently sued for $7.5m by a University of Virginia associate dean.

Three men who claim that they were identifiable as being among those accused of raping the source are now also taking legal action against the magazine, each is thought to be seeking damages of at least $75,000.

“Upon release of the article, family friends, acquaintances, co-workers and reporters easily matched (Elias) as one of the alleged attackers and, among other things, interrogated him, humiliated him, and scolded him,” reads the lawsuit which was filed in US District Court in New York yesterday.

Soon after the story was printed the men's names were published online. They claim to have suffered “vicious and hurtful attacks” due to inaccuracies in the story. 

No-one was fired at Rolling Stone after the story's publication - Mr Dana did write an apology, and the story was retracted.

When asked if the controversy had prompted the editors decision to walk away a spokesperson replied that "many factors go into a decision like this".

The Columbia Journalism Review carried out an investigation into the story's news gathering and editorial processes and found serious failings at almost every step of the story's production.

On the publication of the review Mr Dana released a statement which said, "The report was painful reading, to me personally and to all of us at Rolling Stone. It is also, in its own way, a fascinating document – a piece of journalism, about a failure of journalism."

On his stepping down he said: "It has been a great ride and I loved it even more than I imagined I would. I am as excited to see where the magazine goes next as I was in the summer of 1978 when I bought my first issue."