The Israelis were sent home, while the British teenager has been accused of inventing the incident - AFP

A judge in Cyprus has ruled against a young British woman accused of fabricating a story about being gang raped, deciding that a retraction statement she allegedly wrote should be accepted as evidence.

The young woman, now 19, claimed in July that she had been raped in a hotel room in the party town of Ayia Napa by a group of up to 12 Israeli teenagers.

Later that month she signed a retraction statement, saying she had concocted the story because she felt ashamed and humiliated after discovering that she had been filmed having sex with one of the Israelis.

The Israelis were immediately released and returned home, celebrating at Ben Gurion airport with champagne and chanting “the Brit is a whore”.

Her team of British and Cypriot lawyers have argued in court that the teenager was suffering from extreme trauma and that the retraction statement was made after she had been questioned for eight hours by police without a translator, lawyer or family member present.

She is on trial in a court in the town of Paralimni, a few miles from Ayia Napa, on a charge of causing public mischief by allegedly making the false claims.

The teenager, who cannot be named for legal reasons, has pleaded not guilty.

Michael Polak, one of the teenager's British lawyers, arriving in court in Paralimni, Cyprus Credit: AFP

On Thursday, in a blow to the British woman and her supporters, judge Michalis Papathanasiou ruled that police behaved correctly and that the retraction statement, made on July 28, is admissible as evidence.

He dismissed accusations that the young woman, who was at the start of a summer working holiday in Cyprus, had been placed under duress to make the retraction.

He said her account of the alleged gang rape contained inconsistencies and contradictions.

“The statement was not taken under pressure or improper conditions,” the judge said. “The statement was given wilfully. I don’t find anything suspicious.”

The judge dismissed evidence from defence witnesses, including a British psychologist who said the teenager was suffering from PTSD, and a language expert from Manchester University who said the retraction was penned in such poor English that it could not have been written by a native English speaker.

Story continues

Awkwardly written phrases in the statement included the sentence: “I did sexual intercourse with them.”

A beach near the party town of Ayia Napa, where the alleged gang rape took place Credit: AFP

The teenager previously told the court that she was “very well-educated”, had won an unconditional university offer and would never have written such a poorly-worded statement.

Listening to the judge’s ruling with the help of an interpreter, the young woman appeared tense, repeatedly scratching her hand, to such extent that after a while she drew blood.

The court has heard previously that the Israeli teenagers had targeted the teenager and had “aggressively” bragged that they were going to “do orgies” with her.

Following her retraction, she was jailed for more than a month in a prison in Nicosia, the capital of Cyprus.

She was released on bail at the end of August and has had to remain on the island ever since, reporting regularly to the police.

“She’s having trouble being in Cyprus for so long,” said Michael Polak, one of her British lawyers. “She’s suffering from PTSD and needs to go into proper treatment back in the UK.”

If convicted, the British teenager could be imprisoned for up to a year and fined up to €1,700. The trial continues.

The teenager’s family have set up a gofundme.com crowdfunding page to ask for money for her legal fees and have so far raised £44,000.