Woman convicted for false rape allegation against 12 men in Cyprus (Overturned in Jan22)

Albhabeth

Albhabeth wrote: »

What? It's true that she didn't have a lawyer or interpreter present during 7 hours questioning. That's a fact, not just something she said. That is mistreatment by the police imo and I would question the reliability of information gathered in those stressful circumstances.

That's all I'm criticising.

Well then I apologise. I may have read your response in the wrong way and misrepresented what you said.

ManOfMystery

Low Energy Eng wrote: »

Here we go... another thread for ILOVEYOURVIBES to spout her stupidity.

Seriously mods, I'm all for free speech, people voicing their opinion etc. But when every thread is polluted with her blatant utter stupidity, at some point you have to step in and get rid of this nonsense.

Get your act together.

About time this was called out. Joined in May 2019, and since then there's been an average of 30 posts a day, many nonsensical and the length of a novel. It's particularly harming in PI where some dubious replies have been given out to people who are really in need of well formed opinions and advice.

jimmycrackcorm

SusieBlue wrote: »

She was interviewed for 7 hours with no access to legal advice/representation and she wasn't allowed speak to her family.
Her "confession" appears to be written by a person with a poor grasp of the English language, even the way the sentences were constructed were not remotely similar to how a native speaker would word things, particularly a 19 year old whose dialect would be more informal/casual.

Something stinks here. I hope the truth comes out.

I know someone who was raped and interviewed by the Gardai for two whole days without legal counsel.

Because it isn't necessary. The time is taken to go over in detail over and over the circumstances and timeline, repeatedly to iron out any inconsistencies. It's standard interviewing techniques for police forces.

SusieBlue

jimmycrackcorm wrote: »

I know someone who was raped and interviewed by the Gardai for two whole days without legal counsel.

Because it isn't necessary. The time is taken to go over in detail over and over the circumstances and timeline, repeatedly to iron out any inconsistencies. It's standard interviewing techniques for police forces.

She was in a foreign country & didn't speak the language. Those interviewing her didn't have great English & there was a lot of confusion in the interviews, yet she was denied an interpreter.
I believe she was told she was going to be prosecuted for making false allegations and asked to speak to a lawyer at that point, and that was also denied. This was before her "signed confession" came to light.
That's completely unacceptable. I don't think this was handled professionally at all.

Albhabeth

jimmycrackcorm wrote: »

I know someone who was raped and interviewed by the Gardai for two whole days without legal counsel.

Because it isn't necessary. The time is taken to go over in detail over and over the circumstances and timeline, repeatedly to iron out any inconsistencies. It's standard interviewing techniques for police forces.

But for police evidence to be collected in support of a criminal charge are there not procedures and standards to adhere to? I thought it was the case in Ireland anyway with evidence collected unsconstitutionally being problematic or inadmissible, obviously I'm not sure about Cyprus.

I suppose it would be up to her legal team to challenge it rather than it automatically applying though. Her appeal case will certainly be interesting.

suicide_circus

if i'm reporting a crime to gardai, i dont have my lawyer with me

Albhabeth

suicide_circus wrote: »

if i'm reporting a crime to gardai, i dont have my lawyer with me

Yeah but they're probably not going to build a case against you or charge you with anything. But if they were, afaik they would be legally obligated to tell you they were charging you/what they were charging you with, and inform you of your right to a lawyer.

randd1

SusieBlue wrote: »

She was in a foreign country & didn't speak the language. Those interviewing her didn't have great English & there was a lot of confusion in the interviews, yet she was denied an interpreter.
I believe she was told she was going to be prosecuted for making false allegations and asked to speak to a lawyer at that point, and that was also denied. This was before her "signed confession" came to light.
That's completely unacceptable. I don't think this was handled professionally at all.

It wouldn't have to be handled at all if she didn't make a false rape claim.

It amazes me how often the women who make these false claims are made out to be victims. They're not, and should receive no sympathetic language or opinion towards them.

SusieBlue

randd1 wrote: »

It wouldn't have to be handled at all if she didn't make a false rape claim.

It amazes me how often the women who make these false claims are made out to be victims. They're not, and should receive no sympathetic language or opinion towards them.

Yeah I'm not convinced it was a false claim. The sworn statement looks extremely dodgy. What 19yr old do you know, or indeed anyone for that matter, that refers to consensual sex as "doing the sexual intercourse"???

I'm not trying to make a victim out of anyone so wind your neck in. There are a lot of questionable aspects of how this investigation was handled and recognising that does't make me an apologist for those who actually do make false claims. I'm just not convinced this was one. I don't believe or disbelieve her.

westernfrenzy

the amount of people that believe she lied is astounding. there's not a chance she lied tbh. that statement she supposedly wrote is so obviously suspect

ohnonotgmail

SusieBlue wrote: »

Yeah I'm not convinced it was a false claim. The sworn statement looks extremely dodgy. What 19yr old do you know, or indeed anyone for that matter, that refers to consensual sex as "doing the sexual intercourse"???

I'm not trying to make a victim out of anyone so wind your neck in. There are a lot of questionable aspects of how this investigation was handled and recognising that does't make me an apologist for those who actually do make false claims. I'm just not convinced this was one. I don't believe or disbelieve her.

that can only have been written by somebody with english as a second language and not a particularly great grasp of it at that.

conorhal

westernfrenzy wrote: »

the amount of people that believe she lied is astounding. there's not a chance she lied tbh. that statement she supposedly wrote is so obviously suspect

The investigation was inept.
But a picture tells a thousand words.

Eric Cartman

westernfrenzy wrote: »

the amount of people that believe she lied is astounding. there's not a chance she lied tbh. that statement she supposedly wrote is so obviously suspect

Its so good that a legal expert who was present in the room could join us on boards.ie of all places.

Do you honestly believe that 12 men are more likely to be full on rapists than 1 woman is to be a liar ?

Eric Cartman

ohnonotgmail wrote: »

that can only have been written by somebody with english as a second language and not a particularly great grasp of it at that.

like a police officer in Cyprus asked to take a statement from an English girl and not knowing most of the words she's saying....

suicide_circus

she's appealing so perhaps the truth will come out in time

Sardonicat

Eric Cartman wrote: »

like a police officer in Cyprus asked to take a statement from an English girl and not knowing most of the words she's saying....

Except it's in her handwriting.

Eric Cartman

Sardonicat wrote: »

Except it's in her handwriting.

ohh, please do share it so, why would she write in poor English ?

Sardonicat

Eric Cartman wrote: »

ohh, please do share it so, why would she write in poor English ?

It's included up thread.

Yeah_Right

SusieBlue wrote: »

DailyFail article I know, but you can read the statement here.

It looks highly suspicious to me, its not worded the way your average 19yr old would speak. Who says "doing sexual intercourse", for example? That doesn't make sense. Several language experts support the theory that she didn't write it herself and was coerced into signing it.

Thanks for the link. Some of those highlighted phrases definitely don't sound like a native english speaker. However, during the course of the questioning the police probably used these phrases and similar (as english was their 2nd language). Its quite normal for people to subconsciously mimic those they are having a conversation with, especially when stressed. Maybe thats why she wrote it that way. It does say its her hand-writing doesn't it?

Also the expert claiming that an English person would say flat and not the Americanism apartment is BS. I've heard lots of Irish and English people refer to apartments when talking about holiday trips. Also I think most would agree that teenagers these days are very "Americanised".

optogirl

Yeah_Right wrote: »

during the course of the questioning the police probably used these phrases and similar (as english was their 2nd language). Its quite normal for people to subconsciously mimic those they are having a conversation with, especially when stressed. Maybe thats why she wrote it that way. It does say its her hand-writing doesn't it?
.

I don't buy that a native English speaker would write 'doing sexual intercourse' on a police document because she'd been having a conversation with a poor English speaker. It just doesn't make any sense.

ohnonotgmail

Sardonicat wrote: »

Except it's in her handwriting.

so it was dictated to her. If she was writing it of her own free will she would have written it in the language she normally uses.

Eric Cartman

ohnonotgmail wrote: »

so it was dictated to her. If she was writing it of her own free will she would have written it in the language she normally uses.

or she's writing to her audience , if she's had to sit down for hours and explain slowly and loudly her story she likely had to phrase her entire statement in simple , concise English to the police, they then ask her to write it down , hardly going to revert to "so then I rode all those chaps" and have the police confused again.

SusieBlue

Eric Cartman wrote: »

or she's writing to her audience , if she's had to sit down for hours and explain slowly and loudly her story she likely had to phrase her entire statement in simple , concise English to the police, they then ask her to write it down , hardly going to revert to "so then I rode all those chaps" and have the police confused again.

That's still not consistent with standard police procedure, though. Either she was told what to say or it was written for her, either way they were not her words. And if they were happy to prosecute her for a confession she didn't even write herself, it makes everything else even more questionable.

As an aside, if they had provided an interptreter like she had requested, this whole issue could have been avoided in the first place. But they were unwilling to do that.

Eric Cartman

SusieBlue wrote: »

That's still not consistent with standard police procedure, though. Either she was told what to say or it was written for her, either way they were not her words. And if they were happy to prosecute her for a confession she didn't even write herself, it makes everything else even more questionable.

As an aside, if they had provided an interptreter like she had requested, this whole issue could have been avoided in the first place. But they were unwilling to do that.

And as before the lack of an interpreter is a failure on the cypriot police side and should have been issued.

ohnonotgmail

Eric Cartman wrote: »

or she's writing to her audience , if she's had to sit down for hours and explain slowly and loudly her story she likely had to phrase her entire statement in simple , concise English to the police, they then ask her to write it down , hardly going to revert to "so then I rode all those chaps" and have the police confused again.

what she wrote is not simple concise english. what is more likely is that they wore her down and she wrote what was dicated just to get out of there.

ohnonotgmail

Eric Cartman wrote: »

And as before the lack of an interpreter is a failure on the cypriot police side and should have been issued.

and it makes everything that came from the interview tainted and makes her conviction unsafe.

Eric Cartman

Her confession being inconsistent does not make 12 israeli boys guilty though... regardless of what happened in police procedures to try secure a conviction for false allegations, theres nothing to suggest that what took place was a rape, and theres still two boys accused who were not even present.

reubenreuben

This case reminds of the program 'making a murder'
Not the actual subject matter of course but the pressure from the police/political system to get their man.

ceadaoin.

Didnt the doctor who treated her say that she had injuries consistent with rape? But he wasn't allowed to testify. So she was tried for making a false claim but the judge refused to allow any evidence that she was raped to be heard. Coupled with the obviously dictated statement, this is dodgy as hell. If it was any other crime she was accused of theres no way anyone would be saying she was definitely guilty.

Sweet.Science

Yeah - i defended the lads in the Ulster Rugby trial but this stinks. Hopefully the truth comes out