I was abducted & battered at gunpoint by hotel security in Mexico, I feared I would die
A HOLIDAYMAKER told how he feared for his life amid claims hotel security staff held a gun to his head at a luxury Mexico resort.
Lewis Morgan says his face was left in tatters after a group of heavies allegedly subjected him to a horror ordeal during a dream trip abroad with his girlfriend, Maria Threwal, 18.
The 21-year-old, from Dumbarton, claims he was abducted and bound before one burly worker allegedly snarled, “You are going to die.”
Lewis arrived back in Scotland on Monday, three days after his alleged ordeal at the Bahia Principe Grande in Tulum near Cancun.
He said: “One guy lifted my head up off the floor and held a camera to my face and said do you want to say anything to your family before you die?
“I was crying and pleading with them and they had guns pointed at me.
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“I thought I might not get out of this alive and they might do something silly and kill me.”
Lewis and Maria - who’ve been an item for eight months - told how they set off on May 15 and had a wonderful all inclusive trip costing £2,400 before things turned nasty on Friday, May 27.
They had returned from an excursion to nightclub CoCo Bongo and forked out around $100 each which covered their drinks at the massive venue.
They got separated and when they were reunited at the hotel in the early hours they admitted to having a heated row in their room over who was at fault.
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Staff arrived and asked them to calm down as well as asking Lewis to return to the reception area - a ten minute walk from their room - to pay his taxi fare.
Project manager Lewis claims he agreed to go before he was taken on a nightmare ride through the resort on a golf buggy with five security guards in tow.
Lewis said: “We had a bit of an argument but it was nothing too bad and the next thing we know there were five security guards in the room.
“I agreed to go back to reception to pay the taxi which was about ten minutes’ walk away but they insisted I didn’t walk and wanted me to jump into a golf buggy.
“I started to realise we were not going towards the reception and I started to panic and ask where we were goin
“They took me to a secluded area and I was tossed out the buggy and badly beaten on the floor.
“I curled up into a ball to try to protect myself and eventually they stopped and just surrounded me.
“They were talking on radios as if they were trying to figure out what to do with me as I was dripping with blood.
“They couldn’t just send me back to reception and pretend nothing had happened.
“I tried to run but they caught me and then tied my wrists and ankles and a security guard pointed a gun at me and said If I try anything like that again I would disappear.
“He said I was a tourist and nobody was going to care what happened to me.”
Eventually he was untied and taken back to Maria who was horrified at the state of her blood-soaked fella.
Support worker Maria claims the security staff nabbed her phone after she filmed their faces to gather evidence of her boyfriend’s trauma.
She said: “When I saw Lewis he was covered in blood and when I asked a manager what had happened to him he just said ‘He fell’.
“I started videoing the guys’ faces and they took my phone off me and I never got it back.
“It was our first holiday away together and it turned into an absolute nightmare.”
Holiday firm TUI last night rejected the couple’s claims and said trouble flared when Lewis was challenged over an unpaid taxi fare.
They insisted his injuries were caused by a fall on a recently cleaned floor in reception before he was evicted from the hotel due to his alleged “disruptive behaviour”.
Lewis’s dad Iain, 55, said: “I’m not surprised they are denying it because they’re hardly going to admit they sent my son to a hotel where he was beaten to a pulp.”
Iain also blasted Tui over claims they only responded to his complaints after he’d raised the matter with UK diplomats.
He said: “What really disturbed me was my inability to get Tui to even assist my son, to even acknowledge what had happened to my son.
“The only way I could get Tui to speak to me on the two occasions I did have contact with reps in Mexico was after I involved the British Consulate.
“I’m not portraying Lewis as innocent in that he had too much to drink but to beat up and leave a young man in that condition in a foreign country is a disgrace.
“I spoke to one of the Tui managers based in Cancun and he could not explain it. He told me it was a catastrophe in feathers.
“He gave me assurances that he would look into it and view CCTV footage of the entire area to get a good idea of what happened.
“But not surprisingly I’ve never heard from him again despite sending several messages.
“My son was left beaten, bloodied and terrified and TUI just were not interested.”
A spokeswoman for Tui said: “The health, safety and enjoyment of our customers and colleagues is our number one priority and we have a zero tolerance policy for disruptive behaviour on our holidays.
“We can confirm that the decision was made to remove Mr Morgan from the hotel due to disruptive behaviour.
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“Removing customers from a hotel is a last resort and is in line with our terms and conditions, accepted by the customer when they book their holiday.”
An Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office spokesman said last night: “Our staff provided consular assistance to a British National following an incident in Mexico.”
