Daughter doubts claims E.coli killed parents in Egypt

THE grieving daughter of a British couple who died in a hotel on a Thomas Cook holiday in Egypt has dismissed official reports her parents were killed by E.coli.

M o t h e r - o f - t h r e e K e l l y Ormerod said she had “no faith” in the authorities in Egypt and did not believe E.coli killed her parents, John and Susan Cooper. The 40-year-old, from Burnley, Lancashire, said she was still waiting for answers until Home Office post-mortem examinations, due today, took place.

Earlier yesterday, Egypt’s chief prosecutor Nabil Sadek said forensic examinations showed Mr Cooper (69), suffered acute intestinal dysentery caused by E.coli, and his wife Mrs Cooper (63), suffered a complication linked to infection, likely to have been caused by E.coli.

He said the bodies of the couple from Burnley, Lancashire, who died on August 21, showed “no criminal violence”.

Other tests of air and water at the Steigenberger Aqua Magic Hotel in the Red Sea resort of Hurghada found nothing unusual, he added.

Egypt’s minister of tourism, Rania Al-Mashat, said: “The causes of death, E.coli bacteria, were medically determined by a team of internationally accredited pathologists, which I hope for the family’s sake will put an end to previous speculative suggestions of what might have happened.”

But Mrs Ormerod, who was staying at the same hotel with her children, said: “I have not seen evidence or facts of any E.coli.

“Thomas Cook put a report out that there were high levels of E.coli at the hotel. Whether the Egyptians have homed in on that, I have no idea.

“But anybody can Google E.coli symptoms and the progression of E.coli and it does not kill you within a matter of hours.”