A holidaymaker was left in floods of tears after her £3,000 trip ended before it even began after she was hauled in for questioning by customs officers.
Molly Kelly and Oliver Wright, both 22, had their holiday to the Caribbean cut short when they had to fly back to Manchester just four hours after arriving at the Dominican Republic. While Oliver had been allowed to pass through security, Molly was taken aside for further questioning before her passport was deemed 'invalid'.
The pair say they were left “completely in the dark as to what was happening" - and are now trying to find out what went wrong and whether TUI will refund them any of money they spent on the luxury 10-day trip.
Molly, , an electrical engineer from Anglesey, says she has no criminal record and does not understand why she was refused entry. She said a border official mentioned "justice" and "Colombia" when she pushed for answers - a country neither she nor Oliver had ever been to.
She said: "Throughout the flight and while waiting at the gate, we had other passengers making comments, giving dirty looks such as 'we don’t want to be on the same flight as these criminals', only further adding to our distress and trauma. The way they treated us, and are denying access to information is abhorrent."
Molly and Oliver, a pharmacology student at the University of Manchester, had been looking forward to their stay at the all-inclusive Riu Republica. Having touched down on June 26, a border control guard scrutinised Molly's passport and attempted to scan it multiple times.
Molly said: "The woman then shook her head and pulled a face, and disappeared into an interrogation room behind the passport control booth, with my passport, without saying anything." A man disappeared with my passport out of the room and didn’t return for about 10 minutes."
Molly said the situation left both her and Oliver "highly distressed", and "terrified and confused". She was told she'd need to visit an embassy - but not one in the Dominican Republic, as she'd first thought, but in London.
It was at this point that the duo decided that the “best proceedings would be to go with it and get home safely on UK soil”. Upon returning home, Molly and Oliver contacted the Dominican Republic embassy and the Foreign Office and made efforts to find out whether Molly has anything on her record that would stop her entering the country.
But Molly said nothing was found. Our sister title The Mirror contacted the Dominican Republic and Colombian embassies for comment, but received no reply.
A TUI spokesperson said: “We are very concerned to hear about Ms Kelly’s experience. While we have no control over border control decisions we are doing our best to contact the customer to support them through this situation. Our teams have reached out to Ms Kelly and we would welcome conversations to be able to reach a resolution.”
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