British teenager accused of lying that she was gang raped in Ayia Napa tells court she feared ‘corrupt’ police officer would kidnap and kill her as she was ‘forced’ to retract her statement
- Briton, 19, was on holiday in Ayia Napa in July when she said she was gang raped
- She is on trial for making up the claim after cops said encounter was consensual
- Teenager says she was forced into retracting her claims by a ‘corrupt’ investigator, who made her afraid that she would be kidnapped or killed
- She pointed to statement written in ‘Greek English’, saying she did not write it
A British teenager accused of lying about being gang raped has told a court in Cyprus the statement retracting her claims was written in ‘Greek English’ and littered with grammatical errors.
The 19-year-old woman, who cannot be identified, broke down in tears as she was cross examined for over three hours on Wednesday.
She is on trial accused of causing public mischief by allegedly falsely claiming she was raped by up to 12 Israeli tourists in a hotel room in Ayia Napa on July 17.
A 19-year-old Briton on trial in Cyprus after allegedly making up a claim of gang rape says she was forced to retract her allegation by a ‘corrupt’ officer who put her in fear of her life
The teenager said she was forced by police to make a retraction statement 10 days later fearing she would be kidnapped or killed.
Prosecutors say she willingly wrote and signed the document, which was shown to her at Famagusta District Court, in Paralimni.
The woman said: ‘This is not in proper English. This is in Greek English.
‘I’m very well educated. I’m going to university, I got an unconditional offer so there is no way I would write a paragraph like this.’
Prosecutors say the woman told police she was attacked by 12 Israeli men while on holiday, but later retracted her claims
Her lawyers say she was told what to write by Cypriot police, led by Detective Sergeant Marios Christou.
‘It doesn’t make grammatical sense,’ the teenager said.
‘All the way through there isn’t one sentence an English person would write.’
The teenager wept as she admitted lying to her mother in a text sent from the police station which said: ‘Trust me, I’m OK.’
She said: ‘I think any child will lie to their parents to tell them they are OK because parents don’t stop worrying about their child.
‘If your child had just been raped by 12 Israelis and wouldn’t get out of bed and had a throat so swollen she couldn’t breathe and was taken to the police station for what she thought was an hour but then went on to be nearly eight hours.’
The teenager said she suffered from PTSD after blaming herself for a horse riding accident after which the animal had to be put down and suffered symptoms following the alleged rape.
‘After it happened, even if a man was within a metre of me it would make me feel horrible, but they wouldn’t make me feel threatened for my life,’ she said.
She added that she was so scared by Detective Sergeant Marios Christou’s style of questioning that she feared for her life.
‘In the police station and the way Marios was approaching me and shouting at me to stop crying, I felt vulnerable.
The woman initially claimed that she consented to sex with one boy who she knew at this hotel in Ayia Napa, before the rest of the group burst in and attacked her
‘I felt like I was in danger because he wasn’t going by the law, I wasn’t allowed a lawyer.
‘I immediately assumed corruption and conspiracy so I wouldn’t put it past him, I wouldn’t be surprised if at that moment he would have kidnapped me and killed me.’
The woman spent four and a half weeks in prison before she was granted bail at the end of August, but cannot leave the island.
She could face up to a year in jail and a 1,700 euro (about £1,500) fine if she is found guilty.
The 12 young Israeli men arrested in connection with the allegations all returned home after they were released.