The Courier & Advertiser (Perth and Perthshire Edition)
Couple’s nightmare as toddler vanishes on Tunisia holiday
Ella, 2, found wandering on beach after holiday kids’ club mix-up
The parents of a toddler found wandering alone on a beach in Tunisia after disappearing from a kids’ club on holiday have spoken of their “nightmare”.
Billy, 30, and Claire Bryson, 32, from Monifieth, were on a fortnight’s holiday with Thomas Cook with their children Ella – then aged 2 – Ruby, 9, and Billie, 4, when the incident took place.
They had taken Ella to a kids’ club run by the Sahara Beach AquaPark Resort near the city of Monastir.
About 20 minutes later, a fellow holidaymaker brought a distressed Ella back to Billy – having found her wandering alone on a nearby beach.
Billy said: “You always think about the worst that could happen.
“Somebody could have grabbed her on the beach or she could have gone into the water and drowned. If somebody had picked her up, how were security going to know that she wasn’t just crying for her mum?”
Billy said after Ella was returned to him, he went to speak to a hotel rep who was running the club to express his anger about what had happened and to get answers.
He said: “She was saying, ‘oh my God, I’m so sorry’. I said, ‘sorry? I could have never seen my daughter again – she’s two. How could you let my two-year-old daughter vanish?’
“When I went back to tell her that my daughter had been brought back to us, she wasn’t even aware she was missing. She had no clue where my daughter was.”
The family met the guest who found Ella at a disco. Billy said: “We can’t thank her enough.”
The family complained to Thomas Cook about the incident.
A Thomas Cook spokeswoman said: “We were very concerned to hear of this incident and we understand how distressing it must have been.
“We are urgently investigating with the hotel to get to the bottom of what happened and make any changes needed.”