'Traumatised' mum says family held like criminals and lost £6,000 holiday over son's passport
A mum said she was 'traumatised' and her family were held 'like criminals' after she forgot to check when her son's passport expired ahead of a holiday to Turkey.
Amber Maherloughnan and her family flew from London Gatwick to Antalya, Turkey on 5 August with the plan to spend a week there on a £6,000 holiday they'd booked.
The family had managed to fly out to Turkey, but when they got there the 28-year-old said she was 'shocked' to discover that the passport of her six-year-old son Reuben was several months out of date.
She said that she and her son had their passports 'snatched' by officials and they spent the next day in a room with 13 other people and a 'disgusting' toilet.
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Amber said they had barely any food or water and had to make do with a 'rotten tomato and an egg' that were 'kicked at them'.
"They treated me like a criminal. They took me into an office with four officers and said 'you're not allowed into the country, there's nothing you can do'," she said of the way she and her son were treated.
"They tried to get me to sign this paperwork and snatched the passports out of my hands, they wouldn't give them to me. Then they locked me in a room for 13 hours without what I'd call food. They put a rotten tomato and an egg in a box and kicked it across to me.
"They gave me one bottle of water for myself and my son. At one point there were 13 of us in this room. They treated me like a criminal.
"I asked to have our cases in and they said, 'no'. I did manage to get my son's case because it was a tiny hand-held one. They threw his clothes round the room and checked through his bag for I don't know what because I'd already been through security.
"There was one bed with no bedsheet, no blanket, no pillow, no nothing. The floor was disgusting, the toilet was disgusting.
"I curled up in the corner where the radiator was. I didn't really tell anyone what was going on because there was nothing anyone could do. It was just disgusting. Some of the guards terrified me."
In the end, Amber's family had to fly back to the UK the next day, and she posted 'let this be a lesson to all parents check your kids passports' on Facebook.
The Lewes woman admitted that checking her child's passport was her responsibility and 'it was my fault' that she hadn't, but said 'the way I was treated with a child wasn't fair'.
The 28-year-old pointed out that she 'should never have been flown through' to Turkey in the first place since arriving there wouldn't be the first time in the journey their passport was checked.
She said: "Embarrassingly, the passport expired about three months before. I do take full responsibility. But I do feel like when you're at an airport and they say it's passport security, their job is to do passport security.
"To feel vulnerable in the sense they genuinely let me through the country so easily is very upsetting.
"It was a real honest mistake. We didn't deserve that treatment. It's a touring country. I'm going there as a family to spend money on things to support their country and I'm treated in such a bad way.
"It's just sad. I'm basically a tourist and my son and I were treated like that. It was the thought of him going through it all. Luckily, he was amazing. It was not nice for him at all."
Amber's fiancé Will Land-smith, 31, tried to get a temporary travel document from the Turkish embassy, but he and his six-year-old son had to leave the airport.
The mum said she was left with the feeling that she'd 'ruined everything' and would be more careful in the future.
"I would never fly with that airline again. Even when I was on the Turkish plane I still wasn't given my passport and I was still spoken to rudely," she said.
Gatwick said it is the airline's responsibility to check passports and board passengers onto flights and that they don't have any involvement.
According to the British and Turkish governments, people making the journey need to make sure their passports are valid for at least 150 days from the date of arrival.
Topics: UK News, Travel, World News
Joe Harker