Families in travel firm legal wrangle

Jun 20 2010 by Coreena Ford, Sunday Sun

NORTH families are among claimants demanding £300,000 compensation from a travel firm after their trip to a luxury resort became a holiday from hell.

Tourists across the country are suing travel company TUI UK Ltd over ruined holidays to the San Juan in the Dominican Republic.

Two families from the North – Julia and Robert Brown of Consett, County Durham, and Billy and Noline Johnston of Washington, Tyne and Wear – are among the 44 claimants.

Led by Mrs Johnston, the claimants have filed a writ at London’s High Court, laying bare in detail the horrendous hygiene standards they claim to have found at the Bahia Principe Hotel during the summer of 2007, when they and hundreds more were struck down by an outbreak of chronic gastroenteritis.

As well as telling of “a general smell of sewage, urine and vomit” near the hotel, the 17-page writ claims:

:: Vomit was found in the dirty restaurant

:: Food – which they say was served undercooked and lukewarm – was left uncovered and birds picked at leftovers.

:: Rats, dogs, insects, mice and birds were seen in and around the hotel.

:: Cockroaches and ants were found in bedrooms and bathrooms, many of which had damp and mould.

:: Toilets back-flushed, overflowed and flooded sewage into the bathrooms.

:: Faeces were spotted in the pool “on various occasions”. They were scraped out, but the pool was not closed or decontaminated afterwards.

Mrs Johnston, 43, her husband Billy, 39, a depot manager, and their daughter Caitlin, nine, spent two weeks at the Bahia Principe in August 2007, having shelled out around £3,500.

Mrs Johnston, a legal secretary, said: “It was supposed to be a holiday of a lifetime . . . I guess it was, but for all the wrong reasons.

“People were dropping like flies and there were hardly any around the pool - they were all ill in their rooms.