A confession signed by a British student saying she invented a gang rape is ‘highly unlikely’ to have been composed by her, a respected linguist said last night.
It was much more likely to have been the words of a Cypriot policeman dictating what she should write, Dr Andrea Nini said.
The statement – which the Daily Mail can reveal for the first time – is the crux of a case that has sparked a diplomatic incident, with the teenager dragged to court and convicted of lying.
A confession signed by a British student saying she invented a gang rape is ‘highly unlikely’ to have been composed by her, a respected linguist said
In July, the 19-year-old, in her summer before university, went to police in party resort Ayia Napa to say she had been raped by up to 12 Israeli youths.
She retracted her statement ten days later – under duress, she says, after police on the island ‘threatened’ her.
But rather than being allowed home, she was hauled to court and charged with the crime of ‘public mischief’.
The girl’s shambolic trial, which has led to her being stranded on Cyprus, centred around the statement which she says Detective Sergeant Marios Christou forced out of her after eight hours of questioning without a lawyer.
Written in the woman’s handwriting, the disputed text contains sentences such as ‘The report I did…was not the truth,’ and ‘I discovered them recording me doing sexual intercourse’. The teenager, from Derbyshire, says these are not her words but are ‘Greek English’ as it was told to her.
The statement is the crux of a case that has sparked a diplomatic incident, with the teenager dragged to court and convicted of lying
Dr Nini, who gave evidence to the trial on her behalf, said she would have to be a ‘criminal mastermind’ to fake the structure of sentences to make him believe they came from a ‘non-native English speaker’.
The forensic linguist, who is registered as an expert adviser with the UK’s National Crime Agency, said there was ‘very compelling linguistic evidence’ the retraction was dictated by a non-English person.
Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab has raised concerns about the trial since the teenager’s conviction on Monday. His staff have been in touch with Cypriot authorities ahead of sentencing on Tuesday when she faces up to a year in jail.
She has claimed Mr Christou wore her down over eight hours of questioning during which she says she was threatened and prevented from using the toilet. She said she eventually signed the statement at 1.29am in the hope she would be allowed home.
During her trial, she told Famagusta District Court: ‘Marios was approaching me and shouting at me to stop crying. I felt vulnerable. I felt like I was in danger as he wasn’t going by the law, I wasn’t allowed a lawyer.’
Of the statement she signed, she said: ‘This is not proper English. It is in Greek English. I’m very well educated, I’m going to university. It does not make grammatical sense….there is not one sentence there that an English person would write.’
But Mr Christou is adamant that the woman was free to write the key part of the statement herself.
It reads: ‘The report I did on the 17th of July 2019 that I was raped at ayia napa was not the truth. The truth is that I wasnt raped and everything that happened in that appartment (sic) was with my consent.
Relief: The men accused were whisked back to Israel, arriving at Ben Gurion airport to chants of ‘the Brit is a whore’
‘The reason I made the statement with the fake report is because I did not know they were recording & humiliating me that night I discovered them recording me doing sexual intercourse and I felt embarrassed so I want to appologise (sic), say I made a mistake.’
Dr Nini, of Manchester University, said it was ‘highly unlikely’ someone of the defendant’s background would have composed the statement in that way.
‘Of the two hypotheses; that it was composed by the defendant or that it was dictated by a local police officer, my conclusion from the linguistic evidence is the latter,’ he said.
‘For example, “doing sexual intercourse” is not something a native English speaker would say. They would say ‘having sexual intercourse’.
Despite Dr Nini’s evidence, judge Michalis Papathanasiou ruled the student had written the statement freely, sealing her fate.
‘I think it’s very surprising that the judge dismissed my evidence,’ Dr Nini said. ‘I don’t see how it could have been faked. She would have to be a criminal mastermind.’
The student – who had three unconditional offers to start university in September – has been stranded on the island for five months.
She said she was having consensual sex with a holiday fling when she was pinned down and attacked by several men.
After fighting free, she fled in tears and friends took her to a medical centre.
Police rounded up 12 Israelis, aged 15 to 22. Three who denied sleeping with the girl admitted it when their DNA was found.
Several were eliminated from enquiries within a few days but seven were held until the woman made her retraction.
They were whisked back to Israel, arriving at Ben Gurion airport to chants of ‘the Brit is a whore’.
They have always denied raping the girl. Women’s rights groups have called for tourists to boycott the island.
Cypriot police claimed Israeli journalists ‘planted’ a used condom at the scene. Reporters had gained access to the room, where they said they found the contraceptive under a bed.
But police said it must have been planted as the room was thoroughly searched.
Almost £120,000 has been raised on a crowd funding page for the girl’s appeal, which her lawyers plan to take to the European Court of Human Rights.