Woman taking bid to clear gang-rape lie conviction to Supreme Court

A DERBYSHIRE woman who claimed she had been gangraped is set to appeal a conviction she received for lying about the attack.

The woman was just 19 years old when she told police in Ayia Napa, Cyprus, that she had been attacked by a group of 12 Israeli men in July 2019.

The teenager later retracted the claim after being held without a lawyer by police before she was tried and convicted of causing public mischief.

She insists that the attack took place, denies lying and says that the retraction of her allegations was made under duress.

Now the BBC reports that an appeal against her conviction will be heard at the Cypriot Supreme Court on Thursday, September 16.

It is reported that if the appeal fails, the woman’s lawyers intend to take the case to the European Court of Human Rights.

“She wants to get on with life, but for her to get on with life she needs to get this conviction overturned,” said the woman’s barrister Michael Polak.

“This will be on her record. It means any time she applies to join an association or for a job she will be thinking back to this and what’s happened to her.”

The case of the woman, who cannot be named for legal reasons, prompted outrage when she was sentenced in January, last year.

She was given a four-month suspended sentence by Judge Michalis Papthanasiou, but her legal team says the conviction is “unsafe”.

It is claimed that the judge did not consider evidence that she was actually raped, and that anytime this was presented to him, he would shout “this is not a rape trial”.

The Foreign Office said at the time it was “seriously concerned” about the fairness of her trial.

Mr Polak said another argument relates to his client retracting the rape claim under pressure from police and without a lawyer present after a seven-hour interrogation.

He added that ultimately, the teenager wants to see her attackers prosecuted.