Georgia Harrison, 32, from Greater Manchester, claims she has wrongly been given a travel ban preventing her from leaving Turkey after she admitted smashing up a hotel room following a boozy night
A mum who was thrown in jail after trashing her hotel room in Turkey says she is still unable to return home despite even offering £10,000.
Georgia Harrison was arrested alongside her partner after trying to leave the Lexia Hotel in Antalya on May 7. The pair had spent the night celebrating her boyfriend getting his new teeth when she says she blacked out and smashed a screen in the bathroom. After attempting to leave the hotel without declaring what happened, she claimed she was later arrested and told in court she would have to pay £15,000 for the damage and to have her travel ban removed for ‘resisting arrest’.
The 32 year old from Whitworth in Rochdale, Greater Manchester, initially offered a sum of £3,000 and instructed legal representatives to try and fight for the travel ban to be lifted so she could return home with her daughter, aged 12.
“I got drunk and I have somehow smashed the shower screen of the hotel room and damaged the room. [It was the] worst mistake of my life. Anyway it’s done, I can’t change it but wow am I paying for it,” she told the Manchester Evening News.
“I know I did wrong and I regret being so stupid to have damaged the hotel, but I need to get home to my daughter. I’m sorry I was scared and I just tried to get away from it by trying to leave.
“Yes it was the wrong thing to do, but I was scared and not thinking straight. Maybe if I didn’t, I would be in this mess. I know only I am to blame and my actions are the reason I cannot see my daughter.”
Since the incident, Georgia claims she has appeared in court and unknowingly signed an agreement to pay back £15,000 in damages, was originally denied a solicitor, and has also been unable to access her vital medication, which she only had a five-day supply of for her original trip.
Despite attempts at mediation with legal representatives overseas, she says the travel ban has still not been lifted, with the fine looming over her, and she has since tried to flee the country via plane, a ferry and a day trip to Greece. She has also claimed the travel ban was wrongly put in place for ‘resisting arrest’, which she denied.
In an updated public post on Facebook, the mum said she has now offered £10,000 in damages to be able to finally fly home, but that she is still ‘no closer’ to a solution and needs ‘to get home to my child’.
“I want the ground to eat me sharing this,” she penned. “I’ve offered them 10 grand ’cause it’s all I’ve got, but still no closer! I just don’t understand how a prosecutor from a court can admit the ban has been place wrongly, as I didn’t resist arrest like they said I did. I went mad because I was refused a lawyer in the police station and rightly so.
“All I need [is] to get home to my child and to everybody who is asking why I didn’t pay the money in the first place, is because my lawyer kept telling me to ‘hold on in there Georgia we will get there in the end’.
“I don’t have it in me to stay and wait it out. I want to just pay the money and go, but up to now they won’t even except the 10 thousand even though the actual damage was valued at £1,000. It’s crazy.
“What else do you do [but] just sit and wait and get frustrated at the situation. Yeah I put myself in but wow I’m trying every option to get home and nothing at all is working still.” A GoFundMe page has been set up to raise funds for Georgia to pay the fine and support her with costs while staying in Turkey.