‘Traumatised’ British mother is furious that Gatwick staff failed to spot her son’s expired passport as her family are held ‘like criminals’ and lose their £6,000 holiday after arriving in Turkey

A ‘traumatised’ mother says her family were held ‘like criminals’ in Turkey with spoiled food and little water after she made a ‘mistake’ and arrived on holiday with an expired passport.

Amber Maherloughnan from Lewes, East Sussex, flew from London Gatwick to Antalya with her family to enjoy a week-long holiday worth £6,000 in August.

But the 28-year-old was “shocked” when she was told her six-year-old son Reuben’s passport had expired by almost four months upon arrival.

The ‘terrified’ mother claims their passports were ‘confiscated’ by authorities and they were held for almost 24 hours along with 13 other people.

She claims they were only given a “dirty” toilet and little food or drink – just a “rotten tomato and an egg” that was “kicked at them”.

Amber’s fiancé, Will Land-Smith, 31, tried to get a temporary travel document from the Turkish embassy, ​​which would not guarantee the pair entry.

The mother-of-one was forced to pay the price for her ‘stupid mistake’ as they had to fly home the next day, missing out on the £6,000 trip.

She shared a heartbreaking photo of little Reuben staring sadly out of the plane window as he is forced to return home without a holiday.

“Let this be a lesson to all parents: check their children’s passports,” she wrote on social media.

Amber, who lives in Lewes, East Sussex, said: “It was horrible. I don’t want to feel sorry for myself. It was my fault.

“But the way I was treated with a child was not fair. That’s the part that hurt me the most.

‘And how easy it can be. I should never have been flown through. It was a mistake.

‘It is shameful that the passport has already expired for three months. I take full responsibility.

“But I do feel like if you’re at an airport and they say it’s passport security, their job is to secure passports.

‘It’s really annoying that I feel vulnerable in the sense that they let me travel around the country so easily.

“It was a genuine honest mistake. We didn’t deserve that treatment. It’s a touring country.

‘I go there as a family to spend money on things to support their country, but I am treated in a very bad way.

“It’s just sad. I’m basically a tourist and my son and I were treated like this. It was the thought of him going through it all.

“Luckily he was great. It wasn’t fun for him at all.”

The parent admitted that she had not checked her son’s passport, which expired on April 16, 2024, before traveling and that she had no idea the passport had expired “the whole time” until they arrived in Turkey.

Amber said: ‘I had no idea it was out of date the whole time. It was a really stupid mistake.

‘We got to passport control. Then we boarded the plane and our passports were checked again, no problems at all. Nothing was said.

‘We arrived at Turkish Airlines passport control. My son’s passport was the last passport at the bottom.

‘The officer went through our passports and said everything was fine. He saw my son’s and started shouting and saying, “The police are being called. Your passports have expired and you are not allowed to enter the country.”

“I was shocked. I said, ‘I’m so sorry, I don’t know what to do.’ I was terrified. I didn’t know what was going to happen.”

The mother said she and her son were held by police officers for nearly 24 hours and were treated like “criminals.”

Amber said: ‘They treated me like a criminal. They took me to an office with four officers and said ‘you can’t come into the country, there’s nothing you can do about it’.

‘They tried to make me sign this paperwork and snatched my passports from my hands. They wouldn’t give them to me.

‘Then they locked me in a room for 13 hours without what I would call food. They put a rotten tomato and an egg in a carton and kicked it at me.

“They gave me a bottle of water for myself and my son. At one point there were 13 of us in this room. They treated me like a criminal.

‘I asked if we could take our suitcases and they said no. I did get my son’s suitcase because it was a small, handy one.

‘They threw his clothes across the room and searched his bag in some way that I don’t know why because I had already gone through security.

‘There was one bed with no sheet, no blanket, no pillow, nothing. The floor was disgusting, the toilet was disgusting.

‘I curled up in the corner where the radiator was. I didn’t tell anyone what was happening because there was nothing anyone could do. It was just disgusting.

‘Some of the guards scared me to death.’

Amber said her 31-year-old partner, who is a fencer, and her six-year-old son had to leave the airport and contact the Turkish embassy to try to obtain a temporary travel document.

However, the mother and son had to fly home the next day, because there was no guarantee that they would be allowed into the country with these papers.

Amber said: ‘I had false hope that we would get in and then we wouldn’t get in and it would be fine. I was just counting down the minutes until we would be let out.

‘They told my partner he wasn’t allowed in the airport and that he had to go through, so he went in and came along to the party.

‘My partner called the embassy and tried to arrange a temporary document so we could get my son into the country.

‘They said that even if we got a document, they wouldn’t let us in now. The only flight I could take was the next day at 3pm. They wouldn’t tell me when it was or where it was.

‘It was just horrible. The next day they found out they wouldn’t tell me which flight it was.

She said police officers arrived and “grabbed” her before escorting her to the plane without food.

‘I would never fly with that airline again. Even when I was on the Turkish plane, I still didn’t get my passport and I was still spoken to rudely.’

Amber says the experience left her feeling like she had ‘ruined everything’ after paying £6,000 for the trip, and she vows to be ‘extra careful’ in future.

Amber said: ‘It ruined our whole holiday financially. We had to book separate flights home. Expensive, it was bad.

‘I’ve been in a bit of a limbo the whole time. It’s been quite traumatic and upsetting and I just feel like I’ve ruined everything.

‘We took a week off work and spent £6,000, which we will now never get back.

“I will never do that again in my life. I will be extra careful.”

The UK government website states that if you are visiting Turkey, your passport must be ‘valid for at least 150 days from the date of arrival’.

The Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs states on its website that visitors are “kindly advised to bring a travel document/passport valid for at least six months from the date of arrival in Turkey.”

Gatwick said it was the airline’s responsibility to check passports and get passengers on board and that it had no further involvement in this.

Antalya Airport (Turkey) said it was up to the passport police to comment on the matter.

The airline SunExpress, the Turkish Police Association and their passport department were approached for comment but did not respond.