BRIAN and Denise Curry stepped off the plane into the warm Mediterranean air at midnight, distraught and alone in a mass of rowdy hen and stag parties.
The grieving couple had flown from the UK to Spain after receiving a call to say their newlywed daughter Kirsty Maxwell, 27, had plunged to her death from a Benidorm balcony in mysterious circumstances.
Like most Brits, they had assumed UK officials would step in and help them at their hour of need, as they tried to work out what had happened to their bright, loving daughter.
Yet after booking and paying for emergency flights themselves, they say they arrived in the foreign country completely alone, with no support and no idea where Kirsty’s body was.
“When something like this happens, you think something kicks in,” says Brian, 61, who is still seeking answers over his daughter’s “suspicious” 10th-floor plunge in April 2017.
“You think there’s a vehicle that assists you – but there is nothing. There is no procedure, no protocol. There was no-one to meet us in Spain, we didn’t know where to go.”
And the Currys are far from alone: a damning parliamentary report reveals that the devastated loved ones of Brits who die overseas are all too often “fobbed off” by everyone from holiday firms, insurance companies and airlines to Foreign Office (FCO) officials.
While some bewildered families, like Kirsty’s, say they’ve been forced to travel abroad at their own expense – and with little or no information – to collect their child’s dead body, others have discovered their loved one’s ORGANS have gone missing.
And Sun Online can reveal other shocking claims include:
Desperate parents have even resorted to begging the public for cash so they can simply bring their child home, according to the Deaths Abroad, Consular Services and Assistance report.
And of course, the upfront costs don’t stop at flights and repatriation – there’s also accommodation, lawyers, the translation of police and court documents, and other expenses, to consider.
“We paid around £60,000 overall – the majority of that came from crowdfunding,” Denise, 55, tells us. “The money wasn’t that important at the time, we just wanted to get Kirsty home.”
Up to 90 UK citizens are killed abroad every year, while thousands more die in other circumstances – with figures showing young Brits are most likely to lose their lives in Cambodia and Thailand.
The majority, like Kirsty, take out travel insurance. But, as Brian and Denise, of Livingston, Scotland, have learned, even the most comprehensive plans don’t cover all eventualities.
Kirsty, who had dreamed of starting a family with her new husband Adam, plunged 100ft from her Benidorm hotel balcony just 11 hours after arriving in the resort for a pal’s hen do.
While Spanish officials believe her death was an accident, the Currys insist their “loyal” daughter was killed, and say evidence went missing and was destroyed during the police probe.
“We’re getting no help whatsoever from the UK or Spanish sides,” says Brian, who, along with Denise, was among 60 families to participate in the All Party Parliamentary Group’s (APPG) report.
“We went to the Spanish police station – that was a farce. We left with no answers.
“All this time Kirsty was dead and we didn’t even know where her body was.”
MANY Brits don’t realise there is no legal right to consular assistance when a loved one dies abroad.
This means assistance from the Foreign Office (FCO) is provided at the department’s discretion.
The FCO provides an online four-step guide for people whose family member or friend has died overseas.
Firstly, it advises them to contact their London department, or the nearest British embassy, high commission or consulate.
The FCO can then help them to register the death abroad; provide information on lawyers, local procedures, funeral directors and translators, and help transfer money from friends or relatives in the UK to cover costs, among other things.
But it can’t investigate deaths, give legal advice, identify the body of someone who has died, or pay for burial, cremation or repatriation costs.
Grieving families interviewed for the APPG report criticised the FCO’s handling of deaths abroad, claiming they were “failed” and made to “feel like a nuisance” by the department.
One mum Jean McCulloch, whose son Alan died in Cambodia, alleged: “I am still waiting for the FCO to tell me my boy died [six years later]. I was told by a complete stranger who broke the terrible news.”
The report, published in November, calls for numerous actions, including the right to consular assistance to be enshrined in UK law and for Criminal Injuries Compensation (CIC) to be extended to overseas killings.
But APPG chair Hannah Bardell MP says: “Mostly, it is about changing behaviours and processes, creating a protocol that government
departments, the police, victims support, airlines, airports, holiday companies, the insurance and legal sectors can work to.”
The FCO told Sun Online that the feedback it receives from people who receive consular services is “overwhelmingly positive”.
They later discovered Kirsty’s body was being stored 50 miles away, in an Alicante morgue.
Yet despite the mystery circumstances surrounding the newlywed’s death, her comprehensive insurance plan wouldn’t fund a lawyer to investigate the tragedy.
“We just want to find out the truth,” says Brian.
Other grief-stricken families, like Ben Harrington’s, have suffered further turmoil after their loved one’s body was treated with a horrifying lack of respect and dignity.
Ben, 32, was repatriated to Britain after he died in an apparent motorbike crash on the notorious Thai island of Koh Tao – dubbed ‘Death Island’ because of its high death rate.
Yet when his mum Patricia, from Surrey, arrived at Heathrow Airport to meet him, she discovered customs wouldn’t let his body out for 12 hours because they were waiting for sniffer dogs.
“There was 7.5 litres of embalming fluid in Ben; he became so bloated they couldn’t get him out of cold storage, then had to wash him out for 24 hours because he was so toxic,” she said.
“They did a post-mortem here in the UK but there was so much embalming fluid they couldn’t do much.”
She had already had to fight to prevent Ben’s body being cremated by Thai officials.
For another mum, Andrea Brannigan, the grief of learning that her “kind and trusting” daughter Danielle McLaughlin, 28 had been raped and murdered while backpacking in Goa, India, was compounded by the discovery that her body had been sent home with organs missing.
“My daughter’s organs were removed and retained in India,” says Andrea, who claims the FCO told her they were “not aware” of this being the case so she had to send them proof.
“Part of her brain, her kidney, her liver – all different things.
“On April 3, 2017, I emailed the embassy and told them I want them back. It took them about 18 months to reply to tell me they had been destroyed.
“It still hurts. I wanted them back to get them cremated.”
Andrea, 48, also claims there was a shocking lack of official communication about her daughter’s death, which she only heard about when a pal showed up at her home in Ireland in March 2017.
“Danielle’s friend came to the door because she’d seen it on social media,” she tells us.
“Nobody’s ever confirmed to me my daughter is dead. Even now, nobody’s come officially.
“Families should be informed in a better way than I was.”
The distraught mum later found out that images of Danielle – who had dual British-Irish citizenship and travelled to Goa on a UK passport – had been shared on Facebook, showing her beaten body.
“I wasn’t even aware she was dead at the time,” adds the mum.
“Danielle had very, very red hair, and a lot of family and friends saw them.”
Similarly, Sara Cotton discovered her bricklayer son Luke Miller had died on Koh Tao – the same island where Ben was killed – via a phone call from his friend James in January 2016.
The young man called her from Thailand in tears while she was working in a shop.
“He couldn’t talk, all he said was Luke was dead,” Sara, 55, recalls. “Nothing could have prepared me for it… I just screamed. My manager closed the shop and got my husband down.”
She adds: “My daughter found out on Facebook… she was seven months pregnant.”
Backpacker Luke, 26, had been discovered in a hotel swimming pool at Sairee Beach, just 16 months after Brits Hannah Witheridge, 23, and David Miller, 24, were murdered in the same paradise.
Like most grieving families in similar circumstances, mum-of-seven Sara, of the Isle of Wight, turned to the FCO for help even though, at present, there is no legal right to consular assistance.
“We didn’t know what to do,” she says.
“Someone has told you your child’s dead and they’re in Thailand, a million miles away from you.”
Yet the staff rotation system – condemned by the APPG report – meant there was little consistency at the end of the line, forcing Sara to repeat herself to different employees.
“Your child is dead and you’re having to explain everything to another individual,” she adds.
“It’s so frustrating.”
Other families have described being made to feel “like a nuisance” by FCO officials.
In June 2017, a UK coroner found no evidence of murder – but Sara and her husband Martin, 59, insist otherwise, believing Luke was killed by Mafia-style gangsters.
“I 100 per cent believe he was murdered,” Sara tells us, adding that Thai police reports about her boy’s case were full of “inconsistencies”.
The Currys, too, are still looking for answers – yet they say their own pursuit of the truth has been worsened by the attitude of officials both in Spain and the UK.
“Kirsty’s not here to speak for herself so we have to be her voice,” says Brian.
“We’re not going anywhere.”
It’s one reason why the APPG report is calling for a protocol that government departments and other organisations can all work to – and the right to consular assistance to be enshrined in law.
A FCO spokesperson told Sun Online: “Last year we helped more than 22,000 British people overseas and the feedback we received was overwhelmingly positive.
“We carefully consider all feedback we receive to continuously improve the professional and empathetic support our staff provide.”
But Hannah Bardell MP maintains that it’s not enough.
Branding the situation a “scandal”, she said: “This is about doing what is right and acting with compassion as fellow human beings, something that is sporadic at best in these cases.”
She added: “We should be looking after our citizens, they’re British taxpayers at the end of the day.”
For parents like Sara – and the dozens of others whose children never returned home from dream holidays and far-flung adventures – it is compassion that is sorely needed.
“I miss my boy every hour of every day,” she says. “For a long time I thought Luke was still on holiday but now I have to get it in my head – he’s not coming home.”
