Tunisia beach attack: British families to sue TUI

Relatives of the British victims of the Tunisia
terror attack will sue tour operator TUI, a lawyer
representing many of the families has said.
The announcement was made after a coroner
ruled the victims were "unlawfully killed" by a
gunman at a hotel in Sousse in June 2015.
Judge Nicholas Loraine-Smith ruled the police
response was "at best shambolic and at worst
cowardly".
The 38 dead included 30 Britons. TUI has denied
gross failure.
Judge Loraine-Smith rejected a finding of neglect
against the tour firms and the hotel.
Kylie Hutchison, a solicitor for 22 of the families,
said it was crucial that the travel industry learned
from what happened in Sousse.
She added: "On behalf of our clients who lost
members of their family and those who suffered
injuries in this terrible incident, we will now be
preparing to commence civil proceedings against
TUI."
TUI maintained it was "wholly erroneous" to claim
it had been neglectful and there was insufficient
evidence of any gross failure.
What exactly happened on the day?
How Tunisia's security changed
Tunisia attack: 'He sacrificed himself'
One survivor's recurring nightmare
Who were the victims?
Officers near the scene ran in the opposite
direction to get more guns while the Islamist
gunman sprayed bullets at sunbathers on the
beach and threw grenades, the inquest heard.
He then stormed into the hotel to kill more
victims.
It was only after an hour-long killing spree that
Seifeddine Rezgui was shot dead by police.
There were emotional scenes in the packed
courtroom of London's Royal Courts of Justice as
the coroner described how each of the victims
came to their death, in alphabetical order.
The dead were aged between 19 and 80. Among
them were three generations from one family - a
young man, his uncle and his grandfather.
Families had wanted the coroner to consider
whether neglect by holiday firm TUI or the hotel
owners was a factor in their relatives' deaths.
But he told them he could not because the law
regarding neglect did not cover tourists who
voluntarily agreed to go on holiday.
It only applied in cases where someone had a
duty of care towards someone because of their
youth, age, an illness or incarceration.
He added that he had not found a direct and
causal link between the response of armed
officers in the area and the deaths.
He said there were a lot of "what ifs" around the
case, and better hotel security may simply have
meant more people died on the beach.
The only factor that might have made a difference
was if the hotel guards had been armed, he
added.
"Having reviewed the legal advice on gun law in
Tunisia, it's clear this was not a realistic option,"
he said.
"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."
In summing up at the end of a six-week hearing,
the judge said holidaymakers had been
"reassured" about safety before booking.
One man said his wife had raised the March 2015
attack at the Bardo museum in the capital Tunis
with a travel agent, who told her it had been a
"one-off" and the place was "100% safe".
A Thomson travel agent said she would not say
somewhere was completely safe, the inquest
heard.
After the ruling, 42-year-old Scott Chalkley's
family said: "What is perhaps the saddest is that
Scott was taken when he had found true
happiness with his partner Sue.
"We have been robbed of a future that held
promise and laughter of a wonderful man so
needlessly and heartlessly snatched from our
lives."
The attack was the deadliest on Britons since the
7 July 2005 London bombings.
Survivor Allen Pembroke told the BBC how he
found people lying in pools of blood among sun
loungers close to the water's edge.
He gave first aid to British holidaymaker Cheryl
Mellor, who was still alive after being shot in the
leg and arm, but drifting in and out of
consciousness.
He said he was alone on the beach for 20
minutes checking on the dead and injured, with
no help from anyone else.
"I saw no military or medical staff and it's only in
recent reports that I found out that the police
waited, they fainted, they hid.
"That's unforgivable, they need to be accountable
for that," he said.
The Tunisian ambassador to the UK, Nabil
Ammar, said his country had been unprepared for
such an attack and it was unfair to blame police.
"How can you imagine that police deliberately
wanted people to die?" he asked BBC Radio 4's
Today programme.
Since the attack, he said security in the country
and in hotels had improved, and Tunisia should
be shown the same solidarity as other countries
which had experienced similar attacks.
Following the inquest, Nick Longman, managing
director of travel operator TUI, said: "We have
now heard the coroner's findings and his
comments regarding the provision of security and
visibility of travel advice.
"These are complex matters and we have already
taken steps to raise awareness of the FCO's
Travel Aware campaign. As an industry we have
adapted and we will need to continue to do so."
The Foreign Office says further attacks are highly
likely in Tunisia , including against foreigners, and
advises against all but essential travel.
A Foreign Office spokesman said: "We welcome
the thorough work by the coroner and his team
for more than a year on this important
investigation, resulting in today's conclusions.
"Our deepest sympathy remains with all those
people caught up in this horrific attack and we
hope that the inquest process has been of some
help to the families."
Questions from the inquest
By Richard Galpin, BBC News correspondent
Why did the Foreign Office decide not to
advise against all but essential travel to the
coastal areas of Tunisia after tourists were
killed in the capital city of Tunis in March
2015? The inquest heard how the Sousse
resort area had been attacked before and
how British diplomats were concerned about
the Tunisian authorities' ability to maintain
enhanced levels of security in the tourist
resorts
Was the Foreign Office overly concerned that
stopping hundreds of thousands of British
tourists visiting Tunisia would damage the
economy of a country emerging as a
democracy following the Arab Spring? A
senior Foreign Office official told the hearing
the criteria for raising its travel advice had
not been reached
Why did TUI not display the link to the
Foreign Office travel advice prominently on its
website, as the Foreign Office expected it to
do? After the March 2015 shootings in Tunis,
the advice was strengthened to warn of a
high risk of terrorism and the possibility of
more attacks including at tourist destinations
Why did the travel company allegedly only
direct customers to the foreign travel advice
if they specifically asked about security?
Why, given the threat, did it not check
security at hotels to which it sent its
customers, when it had carried out checks in
the Egyptian resort of Sharm el-Sheikh? TUI
managers told the inquest that the hotels,
Tunisian police and government were
responsible for security and that the response
of foreign governments to terror attacks in
Sharm el-Sheikh had been different to that in
Tunisia
And finally, how was it possible that armed
Tunisian police officers whose specific task
was to protect tourists in Port el Kantaoui,
did nothing to stop the attack?