Egyptian hotel bosses beat up my sex attacker in front of me
»»Scot was assaulted by pervert in hotel lift with her kids watching »»Furious mum says staff battered pervert instead of calling the cops
A MUM has told how she was sexually assaulted in a lift by a hotel worker in front of her children during a holiday from hell in Egypt.
And Joanna Carlin has hit out after hotel bosses failed to call police, beat up her attacker and she was offered just £150 in compensation.
Joanna was attacked as her son, eight, and daughter, four, watched in horror.
A MUM has hit out at hotel bosses after she was sexually assaulted in a hotel lift in an Egyptian resort.
Joanna Carlin claimed managers beat up her attacker rather than call police and she was then offered just £150 in cash as compensation.
The man set on Joanna in a lift, then tried to fondle her and forcibly kiss her as her son, eight, and daughter, four, watched in horror.
Her husband Mark tracked down her attacker in the hotel’s lobby minutes later and pointed him out to staff.
But the couple, both 32, were left disgusted for a second time after hotel employees battered the pervert in the manager’s office as they looked on.
The Carlins said they begged for the beating to stop and urged management at the Royal Lagoons Aqua Park Hotel in Hurghada to call police instead.
After returning home to Linlithgow, West Lothian, they were incensed to learn police hadn’t been alerted over the incident.
And they say tour operator, Sunmaster Holidays, offered just £150 in compensation for their ordeal.
Nursing student Joanna said: “I was waiting to take our kids down in the lift for breakfast.
“The door opened and this man in a uniform was inside.
“He asked if he could give me and the children a kiss on the cheek. I thought, OK, maybe that’s what they do over here, so I said fine.
“He did that and the lift was taking him up to the third floor.
“Then he started grabbing my neck to pull me closer. He was feeling my bum, my back, saying, ‘You’re gorgeous’, and I was telling him to stop.
“He didn’t get out on the third floor when the doors opened. The lift started going down again and he kept grabbing me, pushing me to kiss him on the lips. I kind of froze.
“My son was asking if I was all right. I didn’t want to make a big deal of it because of the kids.
“The doors opened on the ground floor and we got out. I was in shock.”
The family of four, along with Joanna’s mum Doreen, 59, had flown out from Manchester on June 17 for the 10-day trip. Mark said: “The first couple of days we lazed around the hotel and found our feet. “After a few days, I’d some stomach problems. I didn’t go down for breakfast on June 21 and stayed in bed. “My wife took the kids while my mother-in-law went down to get a table. “About half-an-hour later my son came running into the room shouting, ‘Daddy, daddy, there was a bad man in the lift’.” Joanna told her husband what happened and Mark went to alert hotel staff.
He said: “My wife saw this man, who was maybe late 40s to early 50s, in the lobby. He was an Egyptian guy and was killing flies with some kind of electric swatter.
“She didn’t want me to approach him in case anything happened and I ended up in jail myself.
“But he saw me, looked at my wife and ran away towards some doors. I went to reception and said my wife had just been attacked by a member of staff.”
Mark said the operations manager arrived and he took him to where the attacker was hiding.
He said: “I identified this man and the operations manager took him away down a corridor.
“A few minutes later the security manager arrived, apologised and asked if I wanted to see the ‘big boss’.
“I was taken upstairs to the general manager’s office. The culprit was standing in the
corner. The manager apologised and asked us to describe what happened.
“We found out this guy didn’t work for the hotel directly, he was contracted as pest control.
“Then the security manager and this other guy came in and started kicking the living daylights out of my wife’s attacker as we stood there.
“They were punching him, kicking him.
“They took his swatter and started hitting him with that. He was cowering on the floor. I started shouting they needed to stop this. They ignored me so I started shouting and swearing for them to stop.
“I said my wife had just been attacked. She didn’t need to see this. Joanna was still shook up and this made it worse.
“The manager said this guy had been a ‘bad man’ but I said he needed to be brought to justice.”
Mark said he told them the police needed to be called and the manager agreed he’d do it. He added: “I felt more comfortable if they called as I didn’t know where to start. The manager got my wife to write out a statement.”
“Back home we made a complaint to Sunmaster and asked them to look into it.
“After six weeks they came back with a response.
“We found out the hotel never called the police and tried to say we didn’t want police involved, which was ludicrous.
“The hotel said they’d terminated the attacker’s contract. I believe they never called the police because they’d just beaten him up.Then Sunmaster offered us £150 compensation, which I thought was an insult to my wife who’d been sexually assaulted and the police weren’t even informed.
“My wife used to have panic attacks years ago and they’ve started again.”
Mark said he sought a refund for the “ruined” holiday and Sunmaster later offered £400 which he refused again.
Sunmaster and the hotel did not respond to our requests for comment.