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Mum to sue Thomas Cook over alleged child abduction incident
A mum who claims her five-year-old daughter was abducted from a holiday kids club in Turkey is suing Thomas Cook over the incident.
Janet Alexander, 46, from Inverness, said her daughter Rose was taken by a stranger from the club at the Royal Wings Hotel in Antalya, in April.
Rose is reported to have gone with a woman who invited her to ‘go for a walk’. The pair were found 20 minutes later walking near a main road within the hotel’s grounds.
Ms Alexander said she left Rose at the resort’s supervised play area to take her other daughter, Lois, aged nine, to a scuba-diving lesson.
When they returned an hour later, Rose was not there.
The BBC reports she said: "I was completely distraught, completely. In fact, there was chaos as everybody realised she was missing and started running around and people from around the pool started looking for her.
"I was really quite frozen with fear."
Rose and the woman were led back to the hotel by a guest, but the woman was not arrested and left the scene.
Thomas Cook said it is investigating the incident.
The operator said: "We are extremely concerned to hear of this incident. We can only imagine how distressing it must have been for Ms Alexander. We have a launched a thorough investigation to understand how this happened and we will work with the hotel to ensure it cannot happen again."
It added its customer welfare team had been in touch with Ms Alexander.
In a statement released by lawyers Digby Brown, Ms Alexander said: "This has been the most traumatic experience of my life.
"I thought my daughter was either dead or faced being trafficked and abused."
She claims she has been unable to return to work since and is suffering from post-traumatic stress.
The Royal Wings Hotel has denied an abduction took place and said its children’s club is safe and secure.
Lisa
Lisa joined Travel Weekly nearly 25 years ago as technology reporter and then sailed around the world for a couple of years as cruise correspondent, before becoming deputy editor. Now freelance, Lisa writes for various print and web publications, edits Corporate Traveller’s client magazine, Gateway, and works on the acclaimed Remembering Wildlife series of photography books, which raise awareness of nature’s most at-risk species and helps to fund their protection.
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