The woman who was convicted of fabrication and public mischief after saying she was gang-raped in Cyprus in 2019 spoke to the Daily Mail on Friday ahead of her appeal on Thursday, describing the effects the case has had on her as she has tried to continue with her life. The woman later said that she only agreed to walk back her allegations after Cypriot police officers pressured her to do so.
The story first made headlines in 2019 when she accused a group of 12 Israelis of gang-raping her. She said that she had a "holiday romance" with one of the Israelis. They had sex one night in his hotel room when the rest of the group came in and took turns raping her while the first man held her down.
Three of the Israelis admitted to having intercourse with her, while others admitted to filming the scene, but the group maintained that everything was consensual.
After being interrogated by the Cypriot police, a statement was released, reportedly written by her, saying that she had lied. This led to the woman being charged with fabricating the rape and causing public mischief, and she sat in prison for five weeks, according to the Daily Mail.
The confession was taken after hours of interrogation without the presence of a lawyer. "She was there for almost seven hours without a lawyer, without her parents," said barrister Michael Polak who is helping the woman with the case.
A forensic linguist later expressed his opinion that the statement was not written by the woman and was in fact the work of the police, the Daily Mail said in a report from 2020.
The trial was also a difficult affair, with the judge refusing to accept evidence of rape, constantly saying "this is not a rape trial" throughout, according to the BBC.
"We will be arguing that the conviction is unsafe for a number of reasons, and we are hoping the Supreme Court will set aside the conviction," Polak said.
The case has had severe repercussions for the woman, who started a degree in economics last year. Being constantly recognized is difficult for her.
"It's just always there," she told the Daily Mail. "It's not even just at university. It can be when I'm out with friends, and someone will ask me something vague about Cyprus or being abroad."
According to the Daily Mail, her trauma made it impossible for her to go out alone when she first returned to the UK. "Even going out for lunch or going out shopping would make me very anxious. There were people everywhere... I just couldn’t do it alone. There was no way I could do it alone."
She has also had people approach her with nice gestures like hugging her, but while she appreciates the gesture, she finds it difficult. "It plays on your mind all night, and I'll just want to go home," she told the newspaper.
"I get really stressed over nothing, the smallest mundane thing, like what I'm going to eat if I cannot find anything," she told the paper. "Rationally, I know it's obviously not that which is stressing me out, it's the other bigger things."
For the woman, her degree is a positive force in her life at this time. "I'm really enjoying my course," she told the Daily Mail. "When I'm writing essays, I live and breathe it. It's like an escape for me but in a positive way."
The appeal is set to take place on Thursday, and the woman is confident that the conviction will be overturned.
"I hope that justice is served," she told the newspaper. "It's bringing it all back again, definitely. It does make it feel like it is never going away. But I'm totally determined it will happen, 100%. If not [on Thursday], we will take it to the EU."
"We hope the Cypriot Supreme Court will make the right decision when we go there in a few weeks, and we hope we don't have to take it all the way up to the European Court of Human Rights," Polak told the BBC.
Cyprus has been consistently criticized for the mishandling of cases of sexual harassment, assault and rape, with alleged perpetrators walking clean in the past.