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The mother of a British 19-year-old convicted of lying about being gang-raped in Cyprus has backed calls for a tourism boycott of the country saying “the place isn’t safe”.

The woman, who has not been named, told BBC Radio 4 she supported a campaign started on Twitter after her daughter was found guilty of inventing the sexual assault at a hotel in Ayia Napa.

The teenager was convicted of causing “public mischief” on Monday after a judge ruled she had fabricated claims she had been raped by 12 Israeli men and boys in the popular resort on July 1.

Her mother said she was backing the #BoycottCyprus hashtag, telling the Today Programme she believed her daughter's experience in Ayia Napa was not an isolated incident.

“The place isn’t safe – it is absolutely not safe,” she said in an interview voiced by an actor.

“And if you go and report something that’s happened to you, you’re either laughed at, as far as I can tell, or, in the worst case, something like what’s happened to my daughter may happen.”

The 12 young men, aged between 15 and 20, who were arrested over the incident, were freed after the 19-year-old retracted her complaint to police under what she claims was duress.

Her mother said the teen is now suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), hallucinations, and is sleeping for up to 20 hours a day owing to a condition called hypersomnia.

“She needs to get back to the UK to get that treated – that’s my absolute primary focus. She can’t be treated here because hearing foreign men speaking loudly will trigger an episode,” she said.

“It needs resolving otherwise she’s going to carry on having this for the rest of her life.”

She said her daughter had planned to go to university this year after offered a bursary at one institution.

“No question, she would have gone to university, but it was in a career that she wouldn’t be able to do with this ‘public mischief’ verdict, so – again, life-changing for her – she needs to totally rethink her options," she said.

A crowdfunding appeal to fund the young woman’s legal support has surpassed its £80,000 goal.

The “help teen victim get justice in Cyprus” GoFundMe page was set up by the teenager’s parents and British lawyer John Hobbs in August, with the emotional plea: “After an awful series of events, we just want to bring her home.”

The woman claimed in court she was raped but forced to change her account under pressure from Cypriot police.

The Foreign Office said the UK was “seriously concerned” about the fairness of her trial and pledged to raise the “deeply distressing case” with the country’s authorities.

Lawyers and campaigners criticised the justice system after she was convicted of public mischief at Famagusta District Court, in Paralimni, on Monday.

And the psychologist who assessed the woman as part of her defence case, Dr Christine Tizzard, said she was concerned the trial had not fully considered her PTSD diagnosis..

She told The Guardian: “The salient point is that she was diagnosed with PTSD. That’s a standalone diagnosis. It’s a valid diagnosis and it hasn’t really been fully represented.

“Aside the fact it hasn’t been fully represented, it means she’s been unable to get the treatment she so sorely needs and every day she’s not having treatment the worse it gets.”

But the government of Cyprus has said it has “full confidence in the justice system and the courts”.

Cyprus’s attorney general said on Tuesday he could not suspend the trial because she had levelled “grave accusations” against police investigators that had to be adjudicated in court.

He said the woman’s allegation that police coerced her into retracting her rape claim “could not have been left to linger” so he could not move to suspend the trial.

In a statement, Mr Clerides added: “Any intervention on the part of the attorney general, either for reasons of public interest or any other reasons, would have constituted nothing more than an obstacle to ascertaining the true facts of the case, as well as interference in the judiciary’s work.”

Judge Michalis Papathanasiou said he believed the woman had made false allegations because she felt “embarrassed” after realising she had been filmed having sex in a video found on some of the Israelis’ mobile phones.

The woman has been on bail since the end of August, after spending a month in prison, and could face up to a year in jail and a 1,700 euro (£1,500) fine when she is sentenced on January 7.