FRIENDS of the British teen who claimed she was raped by a group of Israelis in Ayia Napa have recalled how they found her “crying hysterically surrounded by men”.
The anonymous teen’s pals are speaking out in the new documentary Believe Me, which airs tonight on ITV.
It comes after she received a suspended four-month jail sentence for “public mischief” after Cypriot authorities accused her of lying about the alleged rape.
Believe Me is said to contain fresh testimony about the alleged attack last July and is the teen’s first TV interview since the ordeal in Ayia Napa.
Her pal Jacob, who had been on the trip with her at the time, recalled how he found the anonymous teen, now 19, who has been given the name Emily in the doc, surrounded by men.
He said: “One of them had his arms over her shoulders as if to pull her close, and the two were almost standing either side of her so that she had nowhere to move.
“So I’ve said ‘what are you doing?’ and they didn’t reply and started walking away.
“She was crying and I was like ‘come on, come on, come with me and I’ll take you downstairs to where we were living’.”
Her friend Becca recalled the moment she returned to their holiday apartment, saying the teen was “hysterical” and “I’ve never seen anyone in that kind of state in my life”.
She said: “It was scary. She just collapsed on my bed and was just curled up.
“I just grabbed her and was hugging her and was like ‘Just tell me what’s wrong, what’s happened, I can help you, just tell me what happened – did he hurt you?’.
“She was like ‘yeah’ and she said ‘yes but not just him’ and that’s when I put it together and was like ‘did they rape you’, and she said ‘yes’.”
The anonymous teen claims she was forced to retract her statement as there was no other way to leave the police station.
She explains in the doc that she thought she could “sort this out” – but thought the only thing she could do at the time was to “conform”.
Her barrister Lewis Powers brands the case a “disgraceful miscarriage of justice” in the ITV doc.
And her defence lawyer Nicoletta Charalambidou said “all the evidence” was there to acknowledge she was raped if the authorities “wanted to believe her”.
Cypriot police have denied any improper conduct in the investigation.
The alleged victim recently explained how she traveled to Cyprus and struck up a “normal holiday romance” with a young Israeli.
She alleges they went back to his hotel room and started kissing.
Then five minutes later the 11 other attackers burst into the room, she claims.
The teen said she was pinned down and the group “took it in turns”.
She said: “Some of them grabbed my ankles, some held down my knees and they ripped my bodysuit.”
After signing a confession that she says was dictated to her by a male police officer, she ended up going through a six-month ordeal.
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She was put in prison for five weeks and then placed under house arrest after managing to raise 20,000 euros for bail.
The teen has now filed an appeal to try and get her conviction overturned.
Her dreams of a future of career with the anti-terror cops have been shattered as she now suffers PTSD.
Believe Me: The Cyprus Rape Case airs on ITV tonight at 10.45pm.
