‘I can’t describe the panic or the pain. I was so full of adrenaline that I didn’t really feel it until later.’
She is describing how her holiday fling with a handsome Israeli footballer she knew as Sam, in the party resort of Ayia Napa, Cyprus, descended into the terror of gang rape, then into an escalating nightmare from which, six months on, she is only just emerging.
After reporting the violent assault to police, events took a sinister turn.
She was branded a liar, charged with fabricating the rape, coerced into retracting her accusation and — as she awaited trial for the offence of causing public mischief — thrown into a squalid jail in Nicosia for five weeks.A series of court appearances ensued, in which she was hectored and bullied by a judge who did not believe her.
Today, she is back at home with her mum in rural Derbyshire after a Cypriot court imposed a suspended sentence. But a criminal conviction, which she intends to appeal, still hangs over her.
You have to remember that this young girl, who cannot be named for legal reasons, was just 18 when a pack of up to 12 young men took turns to rape her last summer.’
