Students’ Greek holiday hell (From Warrington Guardian)

Students’ Greek holiday hell

2:10pm Thursday 9th July 2009

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AN A-level student and his friends are considering taking legal action against a Greek hotelier after they were accused of damaging a bar.

The ten teenagers from Bolton School were in Kavos, Corfu, celebrating the end of their exams when the party atmosphere turned sour.

Nick Carlon, from Warrington ,and the other nine teenagers were threatened with jail unless they paid 1,500 euros after the owner said they had set fire to a beer bump and said he would call the police if the group did not pay up.

Despite protesting their innocence, the teenagers eventually agreed to pay 1,000 euros when the police arrived.

Nick’s friend Christopher Barnard, aged 18, from Lostock in Bolton, was so upset by the incident he flew home early.

“We did not do anything wrong but the hotel staff just would not listen to us,” he said.

“There were other people in the pool who saw that my friends had done nothing wrong, and some of us were in bed at the time it was supposed to have happened.”

The group flew out to the Hebe’s complex on June 26 for 10 nights.

On Sunday Christopher and three friends were dragged out of bed at 6am, while the rest of the group were in the pool. Hotel staff claimed the group had stolen alcohol and set fire to the pump.

When the police arrived the teenagers were told they would be put in jail if they did not pay 100 euros each.

Christopher said: “If we had done something wrong we would have paid for it because we are honest people. We did not go there to cause trouble.

“It was scary when the police turned up and we tried to stand our ground, but they were serious about putting us in a cell.”

Christopher and pal Josh Rothwell decided a week was long enough and booked an earlier flight home. The rest of the group returned on Monday.

Matthew Birchall, aged 18, said: “We're trying to organise a meeting where we can get all our parents to sit down together and discuss whether everyone is happy for us to take legal action, then we will have to find out whether it would be financially viable.”

A spokesman for Cosmos said: “The accommodation was booked through Cosmos Somewhere to Stay, acting as an agent, so their contract is directly with the hotel.

“However, our rep did try to assist the group and gave them advice even though they were not on a package holiday.”

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