Multiple bruises found on a young British woman who alleged she was gang-raped on holiday in Cyprus leave 'no doubt' that she had suffered a violent assault, according to a pathologist.

The student, who faces up to a year in jail after being found guilty of lying, insists she was held down and raped by up to 12 Israeli youths at a budget hotel in Ayia Napa.

Some 35 bruises found across the 19-year-old's legs, arms and buttocks are said to be consistent with her having suffered a violent sexual assault. Marks were also found around her knees and eyes.

They were seen in a diagram, compiled by a pathologist who saw photographs of the injuries, in a Cypriot court as she was tried for public mischief.

However, the evidence was dismissed by the judge whose handling of the case before her conviction last week has come under fire in an escalating diplomatic row.

The Briton (right) leaves court after being found guilty of lying – her mask with lips sewn up signifies the fact that her voice is being silenced

Bruises on the teenager's torso are missing because, inexplicably, police took no pictures of her without her shirt on.

The girl's mother says her daughter is suffering from PTSD caused by the months of her legal ordeal, while Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab has voiced his 'serious concerns' over her treatment ahead of her sentencing on Tuesday.

Her psychologist, Dr Christine Tizzard, fears the teenager will be at a heightened risk of suicide if she is jailed this week, the Sunday Times reported.

Dr Tizzard added that the student is in urgent need of mental health care and is 'physically and mentally getting worse every day'.

'As with anyone who has got this level of PTSD, the high level of hyperarousal in the system makes them very unpredictable,' she said. 'It is a very significant concern'.

She added that the teenager, who she assessed for the defence over 10 Skype and phone calls, fulfilled 'all the criteria' of the condition, including experiencing nightmares and suicidal thoughts.

Pathologist Marios Matsakis, an expert witness for the woman's defence, told The Mail on Sunday: 'I have no doubts that violence was exercised on the body.' She added that the data from the diagram 'is related to rape'.

Pictured: A diagram illustrating bruising found on the teenager

Photos of her upper body might have provided crucial evidence, as a central part of the girl's testimony was her claim that she was pinned down by her shoulders.

The woman, who cannot be named for legal reasons, says she retracted her statement about the alleged rape only after pressure from detectives following ten hours of questioning which was not recorded or conducted in front of a lawyer.

She then found herself in police custody and stranded on the Mediterranean island for five months charged with public mischief.

During her trial, Judge Michalis Papathanasiou, who reduced the woman to tears on a number of occasions, dismissed evidence put forward by UK experts that supported her claim of being attacked and ruled she 'did not make a good impression, she did not tell the truth, and tried to mislead the court'.

He did not hear from any of the woman's alleged attackers and was adamant he would not rule on whether she was raped or not, despite three men admitting they had sex with her.

The judge was also said to have dismissed the marks as jellyfish stings, ruling she could have got them from a dip in the Mediterranean sea, the Sun reported.

Mr Matsakis said the bruises on the hands 'could have been created by grabbing someone by violence and leaving the marks by the fingers'.

He pointed to a litany of errors that were made during the investigation, saying: 'The state pathologist's whole report was about half a page. He did not describe how tall she was, how short, fat, thin, her mental condition, her clothing and he missed a lot of the injuries that were present on the body.

'The girl had a lot of bruises which are shown in the photos which were taken by the police at the time of the examination. And he didn't photograph the front and the back of the body, the torso.'

The bruising across the 19-year-old's legs, arms and buttocks are said to be consistent with her having suffered a violent sexual assault

State pathologist Sophocles Sophocleous told the court that the British teenager bore no physical signs consistent with a serious sexual assault. He maintained that there were only a few light bruises on the young woman's thighs and scratches on her leg and that a lot of the bruises were old.

He told the court that the bruises on her leg were consistent with bumping into a piece of furniture. When contacted by this newspaper, he declined to comment on his findings.

Teenager convicted in Cyprus is 'suicide risk' The teenager convicted of lying about being raped in Ayia Napa could be a suicide risk if she is given a custodial sentence, her psychologist believes. Dr Christine Tizzard said that the student is in urgent need of mental healthcare and is 'physically and mentally getting worse every day', the Sunday Times reported. 'As with anyone who has got this level of PTSD, the high level of hyperarousal in the system makes them very unpredictable,' she said. 'It is a very significant concern'. She added that the teenager, who she assessed for the defence over 10 Skype and phone calls, fulfilled 'all the criteria' of the condition, including experiencing nightmares and suicidal thoughts. Advertisement

Judge Papathanasiou has come under pressure for his courtroom behaviour, which Mr Matsakis described as unacceptable and 'like a primary school teacher shouting at students'.

During the woman's shambolic trial, he often yelled angrily at her and at others in court. In one bizarre instance, he reportedly shouted at the teenager for turning to her mother.

'I'm sure he affected her,' Mr Matsakis said. 'He said at one stage that she was looking at her mother and sighing.

'So what if she looked at her mother? Judging from this case, his behaviour was totally unacceptable and I would say that the authorities need to look into this and see whether he is fit to judge.'

Jamie Doran, who has spent the last three months with the family making a documentary about the case, described the moment the mother and daughter asked him to get them face masks showing their lips sewn together in defiance against her guilty verdict. 'It was entirely their decision and it said so much. That their voices are silenced but only for so long.'

Mr Doran said the family are prepared to fight their case all the way to the European Court of Human Rights despite the huge financial burden.

'They have literally been on the bread line,' he said. 'It was only the support from many people, especially the people of Israel who want to see justice, that helped them.'

Fury as one of 12 Israeli men accused of taking part in the 'gang rape' of a British teenager vows to sue the 19-year-old for compensation

By Andrew Young and Holly Bancroft for the Mail on Sunday

Pictured: Yona Golub, who claimed the 19-year-old student had turned his life into a nightmare

One of the 12 Israeli youths accused of taking part in the gang-rape caused outrage yesterday by vowing to pursue the British teenager through the courts for compensation.

In an interview with The Mail on Sunday, Yona Golub claimed the 19-year-old student had turned his life into a nightmare.

'We're preparing to sue her,' he declared. 'She deserves to go to jail.'

The woman, who is now facing up to a year in prison after a hearing last week, says she retracted her statement about the alleged rape after pressure from detectives following ten hours of questioning that was not recorded or conducted in front of a lawyer.

Amid widespread anger over the case, the country's president is under increasing pressure to issue a pardon.

Tracked down by The Mail on Sunday to the town of Afula, near Nazareth, Mr Golub, 18, did not express any sympathy for the woman, who was left with extensive bruising and is now suffering from PTSD.

Instead, he insisted that he and the other youths were victims. He admitted his life was back to normal but claimed: 'We deserve compensation for what we went through. I don't know how much I should get.

'They need to put her in prison and only afterwards should they deal with the compensation.'

Last night Mr Golub's inflammatory comments provoked a furious reaction.

Professor Ruhama Weiss, a director of pastoral counselling at the Hebrew Union College in Jerusalem, will fly with more than 40 other Israelis to Cyprus to show solidarity with the Briton when she is sentenced on Tuesday.

Dr Weiss said: 'The reason is that we are very much ashamed of what happened, and we want to say that not all Israelis are the same. We want to say to the British girl that we believe her and we want to say out loud that we are with her.'

An Israeli teenager is embraced by relatives after being released from Famagusta police headquarters in southeast town of Paralimni, Cyprus in July

Jamie Doran, who is making a film about the case, said: 'This woman has been through hell and for these individuals to be attacking her yet again is beyond humanity.'

Mr Golub, who was held in custody for eight days, said he was not among the Israelis who were in the room with the teenager when she claimed she was raped but in bed in the same budget hotel with an Israeli girl.

He says he was arrested simply because he was on holiday with two friends who had been in the room.

Police released him after his girlfriend gave them a selfie she had taken of them in her room at the time the rape was said to have taken place.

Mr Golub was not among the seven men freed on July 28 who were pictured on their return home dancing in an airport arrivals hall.

He had returned two days earlier after police found no evidence against him.

He recalled: 'The police took DNA swabs from our mouths and the enormity of what happened began to hit me. I was sure I was going to be put in prison for my whole life.'

Michael Polak from Justice Abroad, who is advising the family, states 'Yona Golub is not a person that was named by the teenager at any point. It also appears that no witness statements or interrogation documents from a person of this name were served upon us during the proceedings.

'If Mr Golub was arrested by the Cypriot Police in relation to this incident and was not involved, this may be because the Cypriot Police swept up a number of Israeli youths and then failed to hold an identification parade of any kind. It is quite possible, as I have stated in previous statements, that the Cypriot Police arrested people who were not involved in any offence against the teenager and had never seen her as claimed by Mr Golub.

'If this happened to Mr Golub then his complaint lies against the Cypriot Police.'

She's not lying... I've seen the terror in her eyes: Campaigner JULIE BINDEL says she knew 'instantly' that woman, 19, convicted of lying about being raped WAS the victim of sexual assault

When I met the young woman at the heart of the Cyprus rape case, I knew instantly that she had been the victim of a serious sexual assault.

It was the way she spoke, the terror in her eyes, and other classic signs of post-traumatic stress disorder, such as hyper-vigilance and wanting to sleep all the time.

Her wonderfully protective mother, who had invited me to go to Cyprus as she was desperate for help from feminists such as myself, is also traumatised but she is doing her very best to prevent the young woman from crashing into a major breakdown.

Yet we have blamed the victim. That's what we tend to do with women who have any sexual history whatsoever when they report rape.

When I met the young woman at the heart of the Cyprus rape case, I knew instantly that she had been the victim of a serious sexual assault, writes Julie Bindel

She was very clear and open about having consensually dated one of the young men who was later accused of rape.

At 18, the age she was when allegedly gang-raped, it is perfectly reasonable that this woman might enjoy consensual sex.

Why wouldn't she? After all, packs of young men visit the resort in Cyprus and elsewhere looking for exactly that.

But I would stake my life on the fact that this young woman has told the truth, but was bullied out of telling her story by authoritarian and misogynistic police officers on the island.

Why is it that women such as this teenager are so often assumed to be lying about rape?

In the UK right now, of all the rape allegations reported to police, only 1.4 per cent end with a conviction in court, which is the lowest number since records began.

Does that mean that 98.6 per cent of women who report rape are lying? Or might it mean that men are getting away with it because young women such as this one, who have the nerve to enjoy sun, sea and sex when on holiday, are seen as worthless slags?

Protesters stage a demonstration outside a court house in Paralimni, Cyprus in December

A women's rights activist participates in a protest in support of a British teenager accused of fasely claiming she was raped by Israeli tourists

I am aware that there is a tiny number of rape complaints that are either inaccurate or even false, but these are almost non-existent.

Rape may as well be decriminalised, and it's not just the UK that has a problem.

In Cyprus, the number of rapes that end in conviction is also abysmally low, and a big reason for this is not – as many people say – due to 'her word against his' or a lack of concrete evidence.

The fault is the rape culture in which we live.

Women are assumed to be lying, and men are either viewed sympathetically, with the attitude that 'boys will be boys', or let off the hook because the woman was in some way 'asking for it'.

This can mean anything from drinking or wearing short skirts to enjoying herself on holiday.

If we do not stand up and protest about the torture of this young woman, we can expect that more young men will become sexual predators, because they are very unlikely to ever fall into the hands of the law.

And for women that would be a disaster.