A British teenager found guilty by a Cypriot court of lying about being gang raped was suffering from severe post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) when she retracted her claims, but that was not fully taken into account during the trial, her psychologist said.
The 19-year-old needs urgent therapy to avoid “life-changing” damage, said Christine Tizzard, a chartered consultant psychologist who extensively assessed the woman for the defense.
The student was ruled by a judge in Cyprus to have willfully indulged in public mischief by claiming that she was raped by a group of Israeli males while on holiday in Ayia Napa in July last year.
British Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs Dominic Raab has promised to raise the “deeply distressing” case with the Cypriot government and contact has been made between officials from the two countries.
The British Foreign and Commonwealth Office earlier said that it was “seriously concerned” about the fairness of the trial.
The case against the Briton hinged on a statement retracting her original accusation, signed after hours of questioning by detectives in a police station that was neither recorded nor attended by a lawyer.
She said in court that the police had forced her to change her story, telling the judge that she was “scared for my life.”
“The salient point is that she was diagnosed with PTSD,” Tizzard said. “That’s a standalone diagnosis. It’s a valid diagnosis and it hasn’t really been fully represented.
“Aside the fact it hasn’t been fully represented, it means she’s been unable to get the treatment she so sorely needs, and every day she’s not having treatment, the worse it gets,” Tizzard said.
The psychologist, who gave evidence to one of the complainant’s court hearings in Cyprus in November, said that the teenager should be commended for how she had held up under the strain, but that her mental state has worsened over the past few months.
“I’m concerned that she needs robust and adequate therapy — and very, very quickly or there’s a real concern that this is going to be life-changing and remain that way,” she said.
The Cypriot government on Tuesday defended its police and judicial system amid growing concern about the fairness of a trial.
The woman, who has already spent more than a month in the Central Jail of Nicosia and has been prevented from leaving Cyprus since July, is to be sentenced on Tuesday next week and faces up to a year in prison and a ￡1,500 (US$1,990) fine.
Her defense team has said that it would appeal the verdict all the way to the European Court of Human Rights if necessary.
The ruling by Michalis Papathanasiou, at Famagusta District Court in Paralimni, was strongly condemned by the woman’s lawyers, who claimed that the trial was full of legal irregularities, and sparked a backlash against an island reliant on international tourism.
Tizzard, who first assessed the woman in September and then about four weeks ago, said it was clear that the complainant was suffering from PTSD at the time that she retracted her claims to police, following seven hours of questioning without a lawyer or an interpreter.
“It was clear, and has been clear all along, that she’s suffering from severe, and I do mean severe, PTSD. She’s in a dreadful state — we’ve been worried about her for several months and how she has deteriorated,” Tizzard said.
People suffering from PTSD present differently at different times and become overwhelmed by difficult situations, causing them to react in unexpected ways, Tizzard said.
“They will very frequently feel such terror and discomfort, and they will quite literally go along with anything to get out of a situation that they find overwhelming,” Tizzard said. “My experience certainly of the teenager was, when talking to her, that she could change quite quickly, particularly if she was triggered by something that resembled the original trauma.”
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