A SCOTTISH mother whose daughter was seemingly abducted from a hotel kids club in Turkey is suing the travel agent.
Janet Alexander, 46, told how she left her five-year-old daughter Rose at the resort’s supervised play area so she could take her eldest daughter Lois, aged nine, to a scuba diving lesson.
But when she returned around an hour later Rose was missing – and claims staff at Royal Wings Hotel in Antalya didn’t even know she was gone.
The alleged disappearance sparked a frantic search which ended after another guest spotted the blonde youngster walking with a woman in a hijab near the main road.
The Royal Wings Hotel has denied that an abduction took place and maintained that the hotel's children's club was safe and secure.
She is now taking legal action against Thomas Cook.
Ms Alexander from Inverness said: “This has been the most traumatic experience of my life.
“I thought my daughter was either dead or faced being trafficked and abused.
“People need to realise these staff-led play groups aren’t the safe places we believe them to be.
“I’ll never trust Thomas Cook again.”
The holiday in April this year was the first ever trip abroad for the family, who were three days into a week-long break when the abduction happened.
The youngster and hijab-wearing woman were brought back to the hotel by the guest who spotted them.
Rose told her mum and staff she thought her abductor was a staff member as she was already inside the play area.
The P1 pupil was then invited to “go for a walk” and thought it was okay as she remembered going for outside walks at pre-school.
Ms Alexander then describes seeing staff turn to the mystery woman and speak to her in Turkish.
But when staff failed to answer any questions Ms Alexander took her two daughters to the local police station.
With the help of an on-duty interpreter cops said they could not look into the matter as Rose had not been physically harmed and was safely returned.
The incident was then reported to Thomas Cook’s hotel representative but Ms Alexander claims the tour operator has failed to respond after nearly two months.
Ms Alexander, a senior charge nurse with NHS Highland, remains shaken by the ordeal and has not been able to return to work due to suffering from extreme anxiety and post-traumatic stress.
She said: “No matter how much I process things it just leaves me in pieces.
“I’ve been shaking and in tears ever since it happened – I even struggle to leave the kids at school now.
“My work, neighbours, family and friends have all been really supportive.
“Even though they couldn’t do anything, the Turkish police were kind and sympathetic."
Janet has now launched a civil claim and hopes the outcome will lead to improved safety standards.
Thomas Cook said: "We were very concerned to hear of this incident and we understand how distressing it must have been.
"We are investigating thoroughly with the hotel to understand what happened and we will work with the hotel to make any required changes so that this can't happen again."
The company said its customer welfare team had contacted Ms Alexander to offer support.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel