A British teenager is currently awaiting court judgement after facing trail for falsely claiming she was gang-raped in an Ayia Napa hotel. The 19-year-old said she was raped by multiple men in July, but after reporting the incident to Greek police they forced her to sign a statement retracting her initial claims.
Following the alleged incident in Ayia Napa, 12 young men were initially arrested in connection with the allegations but were later released. While prosecutors say she willingly wrote and signed a document retracting her report, the teen says she was made to do this under the threat of arrest and had been denied access to a lawyer.
While her trail began in October, the verdict is being delayed until the 30th December. According to the woman’s mother, the British embassy has done little to help her daughter. The UK Foreign Office told the BBC it ‘continues to support’ the woman, but her mother told the Victoria Derbyshire programme the government has not stepped in as her daughters human rights have been violated over the past few months.
‘I'm shocked that neither the EU or the Embassy or the government through my MP have stepped in to ensure fundamental rights under European law are observed,’ she said. ‘You have this concept that if something goes wrong, you'll be helped by having a British passport - but that's not my experience.’
‘You have to question what they're there for,’ she continued. ‘I understand there is a judicial process but the issue is her human rights have been violated the whole way through [by the Cypriot authorities].
The Foreign Office said they have made a number of visits to the victim in prison and attended court hearings.
According to the mother, only identified anonymously as Jenny, her daughter suffers with post-traumatic stress disorder and her condition has since worsened since the alleged rape. ‘[Initially] being in prison and the ongoing uncertainty means she had not been able to get appropriate medical attention or treatment,’ she said. ‘She sees things, she hears things and is jumpy and uncertain about whether things are there or not.’
The family’s lawyer, Michael Polak told the BBC he was ‘shocked’ by the Cypriot police’s investigation, saying they were ‘determined’ to get his client to retract her statement. Should he succeed in proving her innocence, the Greek police will then ‘have a discretion’ to investigate the alleged rape further.
‘The hardest part of it is being absolutely sure your daughter is telling the truth and then to see a group of men in court say that she's lying,’ she added.
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