It happened while the teen was on holiday in Parga, Greece, with her mum in September 2019 (Picture: Getty Images/iStockphoto)
A young woman has won a landmark legal case after police failed to properly investigate rape claims.
The woman, known as Ms X, was allegedly attacked by a hotel bartender while on holiday with her mum in Parga, Greece, in September 2019.
She was 18 at the time and was kept in the dark about the investigation when she made a report to police and was refused access to court documents.
She even came face to face with her alleged attacker in hospital.
Forensic evidence including bruising to her legs, thighs and genitals was also ignored.
The investigation was closed a year later and the bartender was released over ‘insufficient evidence’.
She took her case to the European Court of Human Rights and has now won her case.
The panel of judges ruled: ‘The court, without expressing an opinion on the guilt of the accused, finds that the failure of the investigative and judicial authorities to adequately respond to the allegations of rape shows that they did not submit the case to the careful scrutiny required for them to properly discharge their positive obligations under the convention…
The case was heard at the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, France (Picture: Getty Images)
‘The court thus concludes that the failure of the investigative and judicial authorities to adequately respond to the allegations of rape in the present case amount to a violation of the positive obligations of the state under articles 3 and 8 of the convention.
‘The intimate nature of the subject matter, the applicant’s young age and the fact that she claimed to have been raped while on holiday in a foreign country called for a sensitive approach on the part of the authorities.
‘Following the submission of the applicant’s complaint, the investigating authorities did not take measures to prevent her further traumatisation and did not take sufficient account of her needs. They did not take any measures to inform her of her rights as a victim, such as the right to legal assistance or counselling and psychological support, the right to receive information and the right to object to the interpretation.
‘Furthermore, the investigating authorities did not take adequate measures to mitigate what was clearly a distressing experience for the applicant, such as the interview, the direct confrontation with the accused, the identification procedure and the medical examination, which should have been subject to more careful assessment…
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‘In addition, neither the prosecution nor the court analysed the circumstances of the case from the perspective of gender-based violence. They failed to explore the available possibilities for establishing all the surrounding circumstances… and to take account of the particular psychological factors involved in rape cases such as the present one, and to make a context-sensitive assessment of the credibility of the various statements.
‘There was no serious attempt to clarify the discrepancies or to assess the applicant’s state of mind and personal circumstances.
‘Those elements, in addition to the manner in which they assessed the forensic report, which did not actually contradict the applicant’s version of events, were not isolated errors but significant shortcomings.’
She was not awarded compensation or legal costs because the claim was lodged too late, the court said.
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