UK teenager accused of making up gang rape claims must spend Christmas in Cyprus

A British teenager accused of inventing rape allegations will have to stay in Cyprus over Christmas, six months after she first reported she was assaulted.

The 19-year-old, who cannot be named for legal reasons, was told on Thursday the final verdict will now not be heard until 30 December.

Her legal ordeal began in July when she told the authorities she was gang-raped by a group of Israeli tourists while on holiday in the Ayia Napa resort.

But she soon switched from victim to accused after she supposedly confessed to making up the rape claims.

Police in Cyprus say she wrote a confession retracting the allegations and arrested her on suspicion of “public mischief”.

Despite the woman’s insistence she was raped and the confession was forced out of her, she was jailed for a month in Nicosia and even after her release has been prevented from returning home.

Her lawyers had expected the case to be concluded by the start of the Cypriot court Christmas recess on 20 Dec, but on Thursday the judge announced the verdict would not be handed down until almost the last day of the year.

“The evidence in this case remains strongly in the teenager’s favour in regards to her account being correct as to what occurred that night,” said Michael Polak, a barrister with Justice Abroad, the legal aid group supporting the teenager.

“We were particularly surprised that it will take two and a half weeks for the court to deliver its verdict especially given the assurances provided in court that proceedings would be finished last week.

“This means that the teenager, who is not allowed to leave Cyprus, will miss Christmas with her friends and family in the United Kingdom. However, despite all of this, she remains determined for justice to be done in her case.”

Since first reporting the alleged rape in the summer, the 19-year-old has spent six months stuck in Cyprus, waiting for a resolution to her case.

Justice Abroad said they had submitted 32 pages of written evidence detailing why their client was innocent of the charges of making a false report of rape.

Among the evidence they cite is a video which apparently shows the teenager telling other people who try to enter the room she is having consensual sex with one man in to leave, and that it was a doctor her friends took her to who decided to contact the police in the first place, not the woman.

The legal team had previously attempted to persuade the judge to throw out the confession, arguing it had been forced out of their client by the police threatening her and her friends with arrest.

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