Visiting women from other countries are advised not to venture out alone by a British mother whose own father was wrongly accused of raping her while they were on vacation in Crete.
After a failed police investigation into the frightening assault, she endured at the hands of Greek police, Tammi Forsythe, who bravely renounced her right to privacy, worries her perpetrator will strike again.
Despite her repeated claims that her 62-year-old father was 100 percent innocent, this resulted in his being detained and imprisoned on rape suspicions.
DNA testing on her clothing revealed that her father Philip did not commit the attack while on vacation in the resort of Malia, leading to his release earlier this week.
With thousands of British tourists, many of them in their late teens and early 20s expected to flood into the popular destination this summer, Tammi, 33, fears the rapist will strike again.
She said: ’The man who raped me is still out there and my biggest fear is that he will attack again.
‘I would tell any young girl not to be out alone at night. People come here to have a good time, and like me they will get drunk. But they should stay together in a group and hopefully that way they will be safe.
‘The police were convinced my father was the guilty man, despite me saying 1,000 per cent he was not involved and he also protesting his innocence. They did not want to listen.
‘One of the reasons I decided to come forward and be named was because I do not want any other young girl or woman to have to endure what I have.
‘The last few weeks have been so hard. Not only was I raped and will have to live with that but saw my father locked up and accused of being the rapist.’
Mr Forsythe, a father of seven, spent over three weeks in prison while he waited for the DNA test results to show what he and his daughter maintained all along – that he was not involved. The pair had an emotional reunion at the rented apartment in the Crete capital of Heraklion where Tammi has been staying while she waited for her father to be released.
She moved to the island’s capital as staying in Malia, where the rape took place in the early hours of the morning on June 9th, led to her suffering panic attacks.
‘Even though I cannot remember the face of the man who attacked me, just being in the resort was causing panic attacks.
‘I could walk about 200 yards and then just broke down. I would look at every man and wonder if it was him,’ she said.
‘I have managed to blot out the assault, but even though I had been drinking heavily remember the events leading up to it and afterwards.’
Tammi has arranged to have counselling at a rape crisis centre when she returns to her home in Hull, East Yorkshire next week.
During her extended stay in Crete, which cost almost £5,000, she has been buoyed by hundreds of messages of support from friends and family who have rallied round.
‘All my brothers and sisters were united in that they knew dad did not do anything to me,’ said Tammi.
‘The support I have had and people saying how brave I have been to speak out the rape has helped me.
‘If there is something good that comes out of me speaking out, I will be happy.’
While the rape ordeal and that of prison for her father is never far from their thoughts, father and daughter have been able to relax in the sunshine, taking a stroll in a local park and enjoying the café culture of the island.
But behind their smiles they are seething with anger that the police have not apologised for their mistake.
‘All they said was that ‘Justice had been done’. That was it. No apology for what they put me through or what my father had to suffer in prison,’ said Tammi.
‘They would not listen to me when I told them it wasn’t my father and based their whole investigation on some CCTV.’
Mr Forsythe, who suffers from diabetes and other health conditions, added: ’When I first saw police, I told them I had told my daughter to report the rape. What person after raping someone tells the victim to report it to the police?’
Tammi, a mother of four, claimed she had not intended to contact the police and that she intended to leave right away for Hull. Just three days into their vacation, the family had their first rape since 2018.
They were celebrating Mr Forsyth’s 62 birthday in the resort tthat primarily caters to tourists with clubs, bars and restaurants with distinctly British names such as George and the Dragon and The Red Lion.
‘As far as I was concerned, I just wanted to go home but after my dad said I should go to the police it made sense as it could save another woman from being raped,’ said Tammi.
Her critique of the Greek police was eerily similar to that of a British tourist, age 19, who in 2019 claimed she had been gang raped by Israeli teenagers while on vacation in Cyprus.
The youngster, whose conviction for fabricating the attack was overturned on appeal, had protested during her trial that she had been denied access to an interpreter and coerced into signing a Greek-written statement by male cops.
Tammi claimed that she was only interrogated by up to five male police officers and asked to sign a statement that, in her opinion, identified her father as the rapist. The statement was written in Greek.
She claimed, “I refused to sign because I did not comprehend what the statement said.” They urged me to sign, but I’m glad I resisted because things could have been much worse. The rape investigation is still ongoing, according to Greek police, who declined to offer any other information. After watching CCTV footage from the Help bar, where they had been drinking in the hours before the incident, officials insist that they were able to apprehend Mr. Forsythe.
The CCTV footage was obtained by MailOnline and Tammi denied her father did anything wrong, ‘I was drunk out of my head; I could barely move. He was just trying to get me up to take me back to the hotel and put me to bed.
‘I lashed out at him because I was so drunk and angry. At one stage, I think I bit his hand. That’s all the CCTV footage shows-a father trying to help his very drunk daughter. There was nothing sexual going on between us. It’s a disgusting and ridiculous thing to say.’
Captain Sofia Loverdos of Crete police told MailOnline: ‘The investigation will continue but we have nothing to apologise for about why Mr Forsythe was arrested.
‘At all times we followed the Greek penal code. It is the police’s job to investigate, gather evidence and then put together a file for the Prosecutor. The decision to detain Mr Forsythe was made by the Prosecutor, not us and we just acted on their instructions.
‘What happened to Mr Forsythe was not a mistake on our part, we did nothing wrong. When we saw the CCTV footage from the Help bar, that’s when our suspicions were raised’.
“At the end of the day, the police are also people,” Captain Loverdos continued, “and we are pleased that Mr. Forsythe has been released and is now reunited with his daughter. We share their desire for the culprit to be apprehended and the revelation of the truth.
According to the police officer, they have managed to obtain the attacker’s DNA and are still looking into Tammi’s rape.
We will now match this DNA to those samples that are in our national data base, the speaker continued. Although it will take some time, this might result in the attacker’s capture.
‘Following Mr Forsythe’s release, the investigation will continue and has now taken a new turn. We will continue to work hard to catch the person who raped Tammi.’