British families to sue TUI for Tunisia beach attack

Relatives of the British victims of the Tunisia terror attack will sue tour operator TUI, a lawyer representing many of the families has said.

The announcement was made after a coroner ruled the victims were “unlawfully killed” by a gunman at a hotel in Sousse in June 2015.

Judge Nicholas Loraine-Smith ruled the police response was “at best shambolic and at worst cowardly”.

The 38 dead included 30 Britons. TUI has denied gross failure.

Judge Loraine-Smith rejected a finding of neglect against the tour firms and the hotel.

Kylie Hutchison, a solicitor for 22 of the families, said it was crucial that the travel industry learned from what happened in Sousse.

He added: “On behalf of our clients who lost members of their family and those who suffered injuries in this terrible incident, we will now be preparing to commence civil proceedings against TUI.”

TUI maintained it was “wholly erroneous” to claim it had been neglectful and there was insufficient evidence of any gross failure.

Officers near the scene ran in the opposite direction to get more guns while the Islamist gunman sprayed bullets at sunbathers on the beach and threw grenades, the inquest heard.

He then stormed into the hotel to kill more victims.

It was only after an hour-long killing spree that Seifeddine Rezgui was shot dead by police.

There were emotional scenes in the packed courtroom of London’s Royal Courts of Justice as the coroner described how each of the victims came to their death, in alphabetical order.

The dead were aged between 19 and 80. Among them were three generations from one family - a young man, his uncle and his grandfather.

Families had wanted the coroner to consider whether neglect by holiday firm TUI or the hotel owners was a factor in their relatives’ deaths.

But he told them he could not because the law regarding neglect did not cover tourists who voluntarily agreed to go on holiday.

It only applied in cases where someone had a duty of care towards someone because of their youth, age, an illness or incarceration.

He added that he had not found a direct and causal link between the response of armed officers in the area and the deaths.

He said there were a lot of “what ifs” around the case, and better hotel security may simply have meant more people died on the beach.

The only factor that might have made a difference was if the hotel guards had been armed, he added.

“Having reviewed the legal advice on gun law in Tunisia, it’s clear this was not a realistic option,” he said.

“The simple but tragic truth in this case is that a gunman armed with a gun and grenades went to that hotel intending to kill as many tourists as he could.”

In summing up at the end of a sixweek hearing, the judge said holidaymakers had been “reassured” about safety before booking.

One man said his wife had raised the March 2015 attack at the Bardo museum in the capital Tunis with a travel agent, who told her it had been a “one-off” and the place was “100% safe”.

A Thomson travel agent said she would not say somewhere was completely safe, the inquest heard.

After the ruling, 42-year-old Scott Chalkley’s family said: “What is perhaps the saddest is that Scott was taken when he had found true happiness with his partner Sue.

“We have been robbed of a future that held promise and laughter of a wonderful man so needlessly and heartlessly snatched from our lives.”

The attack was the deadliest on Britons since the 7 July 2005 London bombings.

Survivor Allen Pembroke said how he found people lying in pools of blood among sun loungers close to the water’s edge.

He gave first aid to British holidaymaker Cheryl Mellor, who was still alive after being shot in the leg and arm, but drifting in and out of consciousness.

He said he was alone on the beach for 20 minutes checking on the dead and injured, with no help from anyone else.

“I saw no military or medical staff and it’s only in recent reports that I found out that the police waited, they fainted, they hid.

“That’s unforgivable, they need to be accountable for that,” he said.

The Tunisian ambassador to the UK, Nabil Ammar, said his country had been unprepared for such an attack and it was unfair to blame police.

“How can you imagine that police deliberately wanted people to die?” he asked.

Since the attack, he said security in the country and in hotels had improved, and Tunisia should be shown the same solidarity as other countries which had experienced similar attacks.

Following the inquest, Nick Longman, managing director of travel operator TUI, said: “We have now heard the coroner’s findings and his comments regarding the provision of security and visibility of travel advice.

“These are complex matters and we have already taken steps to raise awareness of the FCO’s Travel Aware campaign. As an industry we have adapted and we will need to continue to do so.”

The Foreign Office says further attacks are highly likely in Tunisia, including against foreigners, and advises against all but essential travel.