[2][3] On 17 July 2019, the British teenager filed a report with the Cyprus Police in Ayia Napa claiming that she had been raped by several Israeli youths in her hotel room.
[5] However, private forensic pathologist Dr. Marios Matsakis, who was hired by her family to participate in the case, reported that there was clear evidence of gang rape.
Nir Yaslovitch, a lawyer representing several of the Israeli youths, said that his clients would seek legal damages against her for false rape allegations.
[16][17] On 30 July, the woman appeared at the Famagusta District Court in Paralimni, where she was charged with acts of "public mischief" and remanded into custody for eight days.
[18] On 27 August, the defendant pleaded not guilty to falsely claiming she was gang-raped and was bailed by a court on condition that she visited a police station in Nicosia three times a week before her trial.
[20][21] Michael Polak, the Director of Justice International and a member of the defence team, claimed that the defendant's interrogation violated the Constitution of Cyprus and European Union human rights legislation.
Judge Michalis Papathanasiou adjourned the defendant's trial by two weeks to allow the defence to produce new evidence including text messages and images circulated by the alleged attackers to support their contention that she had been raped.
He ruled the defendant an "unreliable witness", claiming that she had provided the police with "contradictory, inconsistent, exaggerated and inflated" versions of the night of the alleged crime.
[22][23] On 3 December 2019, the court heard the defendant's testimony, who maintained that she had been gang-raped by the Israeli youths and that she had been coerced by police into dropping the rape allegations.
[34][29][30] Following their release in late July, several of the Israeli teenagers were greeted by their cheering families at Ben Gurion International Airport in Tel Aviv.
According to media reports, the boys were dressed in kippahs and they and their male relatives popped champagne, let off a confetti cannon and chanted "Am Yisrael Chai" ("the people of Israel lives") and "the Brit is a whore."
"[35][36][37] On 9 August 2019, the British teenager's parents established a GoFundMe campaign to raise £15,000 (US$18,000) to cover their daughter's legal fees following the resignation of her first lawyer Andreas Pittadjis.
[20] On 14 October, several human rights and feminist groups urged the Cypriot attorney general Costas Clerides to dismiss the case against the British teenager.
Susana Pavlou, the Director of the Mediterranean Institute for Gender Studies, criticized the brutal ordeal experienced by the British teenager and her family.
[9][40] Several Cypriot and Israeli feminists and women's rights activists also picketed the sentencing of the defendant on 7 January 2020, criticizing Judge Papathanasiou for victim blaming and siding with the alleged rapists.
[49][50] On 1 January, the British teenager's mother expressed support for a boycott campaign against Cyprus, stating that the country was unsafe for tourists and condemning her daughter's guilty verdict as a miscarriage of justice.
The company removed all references to Ayia Napa on its website and offered refunds to customers who had booked for the upcoming 2020 summer tour to the destination.
[2][3] The Independent's columnist Harriet Hall opined that the case reflected a long tradition of ignoring or punishing female rape victims.