Tunisia massacre victims to sue holiday firm
RELATIVES of the Tunisian beach massacre victims say they plan to sue holiday firm TUI after a coroner highlighted security blunders.
Lawyers for 22 of the 30 murdered Britons are set to demand compensation over lapses which allowed an Islamic State gunman to run amok in Sousse.
They said the Imperial Marhaba hotel had failed to improve its security despite evidence of a growing jihadist terror threat.
The legal team will also claim that tour operator TUI did nothing to pass on Foreign Office warnings about terrorism to its customers.
The announcement came as Judge Nicholas Loraine-Smith ruled that all the British victims were “unlawfully killed” by 23-yearold fanatic Seifeddine Rezgui. Judge Loraine-Smith also criticised the local police who deliberately delayed their arrival at the scene.
Giving his ruling yesterday, he said: “The response by the police was at best shambolic, at worst cowardly. 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.”
Families had wanted the coroner to consider whether neglect by TUI or the hotel owners was a factor in their relatives’ deaths.
But Judge Loraine-Smith rejected a finding of neglect against the tour firms and the hotel because the law regarding neglect did not cover tourists who agreed to go on holiday voluntarily.
He also said that he had not found a direct and causal link between the response of officers in the area and the deaths.
Following the hearing law firm Irwin Mitchell announced its plans to sue TUI on behalf of the 22 victims’ families.
They said the June 2015 massacre came at a time when terrorist activity in Tunisia was on the increase and, in Sousse itself, there had been a failed suicide bomb attack.
Suzanne Richards, who lost her son Joel Richards, 19, father Patrick Evans, 79, and brother Adrian Evans, 49, said she was “convinced” their deaths were avoidable.
A TUI spokesperson maintained it was “wholly erroneous” to claim the company had been neglectful and that there was insufficient evidence of any gross failure.