Police to review their handling of Napa rape case

Police on Wednesday said they will investigate whether mistakes were made in their handling of the 2019 Ayia Napa gang rape case after the supreme court overturned the conviction of the woman who filed and later retracted a complaint she had been raped.

Speaking on state radio, police spokesman Christos Andreou said police are not infallible and are in the process of studying the supreme court’s ruling.

He added that police were following procedures in accordance with a court’s decisions and will investigate whether there were mistakes or omissions during their investigation of the rape case.

His statement came after the supreme court on Monday overturned the conviction of the now 21-year-old British woman who was handed a four-month suspended jail sentence for causing public mischief to 12 Israelis after claiming they had raped her.

Monday’s ruling concerned whether the woman had misled authorities and given a false statement and not the alleged rape itself, which was reiterated throughout the court proceedings.

Michael Polak, who was part of the team of lawyers representing the woman, said the decision was a “watershed moment” for the woman “but also for others around the world in similar positions.”

He added the “woman was not only mistreated” by the police but was also put through a “manifestly unfair” trial, as the Supreme Court found.

There have been calls on police to reopen the case as a rape complaint while there have protests in the woman’s support throughout the process. The spokesman would not speculate on what police will do.

The British woman, who has not been officially named, reported her rape by a group of Israeli tourists aged 15 to 22, in July 2019, but was charged when she retracted her initial complaint a little over a week later.

The 12 Israeli youths were detained for questioning but swiftly released after the woman withdrew her accusation.

She has since maintained that police coerced her into retracting her initial claim by interrogating her for hours while she was traumatised and in the absence of a lawyer or translator.

Initially, Cyprus police denied any mishandling of the case.

In November 2020, police underwent training on how to handle rape allegations by two sexual violence experts, who have said “mistakes were made” with the allegations of the British woman.

A total of 41 officers, including two from the SBA, took part in two cycles of interactive trainings held by Scottish rape counsellor Isabelle Kerr and former police detective Alison Eaton.

“I think they understood that mistakes were made. That’s why people have been welcoming to us because nobody wants to make mistakes over and over again,” Kerr had told the Cyprus Mail.