Eloise Horsfield
A BRITISH man has described his Spanish ‘holiday from hell’ after he was falsely accused of murder the day after he arrived.
Beverley Parkinson, from Aberdeen, came to Benalmadena on holiday with his wife and young son – but the trip soon turned sour.
Just one day in, Parkinson was arrested over the death of a man in Tenerife in 2001, during a brawl outside the nightclub where he had worked as a bouncer.
The 38-year-old spent 12 days in a Malaga prison before the charges were dropped because there was no evidence against him.
But because his passport had been blocked, he was unable to leave Spain and was forced to wait in a hotel paid for by his lawyer, living off ‘ketchup and bread’ as he hardly had any cash.
“I’m absolutely relieved to be home and back in the UK again.
“It was a holiday from hell – an all-inclusive holiday that I didn’t expect. It was obviously devastating.”
Parkinson had originally been questioned about the brawl but was not charged.
Unbeknownst to him, one of the men involved later died and a warrant was issued for his arrest in 2004 by the Spanish authorities – meaning it was only a matter of time before he was arrested once arriving on Spanish soil.
Parkinson maintains he was not even at the nightclub on the night of the fight in 2001.
“I wasn’t even there,” he said. “It was my night off, the first thing I knew about the incident was when the police came to get me the next morning.”
