A mum has had to tell her 10-year-old son that he cannot join his school friends on a much-anticipated skiing trip because of repeated passport delays. Mum Kirsty Morgan applied to have her son's child passport renewed a month before the planned trip to Italian ski resort Bormio, but claims repeated delays meant it did not arrive in time.
The 39-year-old from Anfield, Liverpool, said her son Reuben Murphy, who is starting secondary school later this year, was left "screaming and sobbing" from not being able to join his school friends on the trip, reports The Liverpool Echo.
Kirsty said: "I had to tell an excited 10-year-old boy who's in his last year of school he's not going skiing with his friends. It was one of the most heart-breaking experiences of my life. He was devastated, screaming and sobbing."
The mum-of-one said the Passport Office and courier firm TNT were "blaming each other" for the non-arrival of the child passport. She added: "I was told I could have it cancelled and an emergency one reissued if I went to the passport office, so I did three times only to be told by a manager there was nothing they could do. No one could tell me exactly where my son's passport was."
At one point Kirsty claimed she was told she could go to Liverpool John Lennon Airport if she wanted to pick up the passport in person, only to receive a text the next day to say it had already been "loaded on the van."
But despite this, the vital document still did not arrive in time for the necessary tests to be carried out before Reuben could travel with his friends from All Saints Catholic Primary School in Anfield.
She said: "People had applied in the same time frame as me and had their passport within two weeks and it was first time too. Reuben's was a renewal, it was his third passport.
"I'm absolutely disgusted. I've never heard him so upset as that in all my life when I told him he couldn't go. It was so sad, it was like somebody had died."
A Passport Office spokesperson said: "As is clearly indicated in our online guidance people should allow up to 10 weeks to get their passport when applying from the UK, or they can apply via a one-week fast track service for child passport renewals."
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