British tourist: My holiday isle sex assault hell
‘One was trying to undo my bikini’
A BRITISH woman says she was sexually assaulted twice and became too afraid to leave her room at a luxury resort in the Dominican Republic. Gemma Khan, 25, who waived her right to anonymity, said she first had two locals try to untie her bikini as she walked back from the pool to her room.
Just two days later a member of staff ‘pressed up’ against her in the souvenir shop and started stroking her leg. She said she was ‘treated like trash’. Miss Khan, a five-a-side football centre manager from Halesowen, West Midlands, travelled with three friends to the Caribbean island for a fortnight last month.
They had each paid £900 through tour firm Thomson to stay at the five-star Be Live Collection Marien Hotel in the north of the island that includes a casino, four restaurants, four bars and a nightclub.
She said she was not informed that locals were allowed into the resort on weekends.
Miss Khan, who studied at Wolverhampton
‘One grabbed my shorts’
University, had been sunbathing by the pool when the first assault happened. She said: ‘I put on a pair of shorts and a croptop and I started walking back to my room. These two men came up to me speaking Spanish.
‘One grabbed my shorts and was trying to undo my bikini. I pushed him away and called out for one of the security guards. I then hit him over his shoulder with a beach bag and ran to my room. By the time I had reached my room, less than two minutes later, I was so angry. I was upset. No one had come to help me. I got glanced at by security and left to defend myself.’
‘Being called “Sexy English” while having my shorts torn and pulled within the hotel grounds is not exactly what I paid for.’
Two days later, she says she was assaulted again – this time by a hotel staff member in the souvenir shop. ‘A man came up and pressed up against me. I stepped back into the corner of the shop and he started feeling my leg. He then offered me a purse to keep quiet about it’, she told the Sunday Mirror.
But when she told a Thomson representative, she was met with a ‘blank expression’.
After the first incident she was told to fill out a form. When it happened again she was told to call the customer service desk and then spoke with the manager who was equally unresponsive.
She said: ‘Again, I just got a blank expression. It was the worst holiday I’ve ever had.’
Speaking to MailOnline, she said: ‘I am still angry about it. I had to work so hard to have a holiday away with friends and two men completely ruined it for us... then it happened again, only with staff from their shop. I messaged Thomson’s the moment I got home and only got one call. I missed it due to work.’
A spokesman for Thomson said: ‘We’re really sorry to hear about Miss Khan’s experience. We would really like the opportunity to speak to the customer to carry out an investigation now she has returned home.
‘We’ve tried to make contact a number of times without success so we would encourage Miss Khan to get back in touch.’