Mum held ‘like felony’ after touchdown in Turkey with expired passport

A ‘traumatised’ mother says her family were held ‘like criminals’ in Turkey with rotten food and little water after her ‘mistake’, arriving 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 £6,000 holiday in August.

But the 28-year-old was ‘shocked’ to be told her six-year-old son Reuben’s passport was nearly four months out of date upon arrival.

The ‘terrified’ mother claims their passports were ‘snatched away’ by officials, and that they were detained for nearly 24 hours with 13 other people.

She claims they only had a ‘disgusting’ toilet to use, and were given barely any food or water – only 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. This would not guarantee the duo entry.

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

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

‘Let this be a lesson to all parents check your kids’ passports,’ she wrote on social media.

Amber, who lives in Lewes, East Sussex, said: ‘It was horrible. I don’t want pity for myself. It was my fault.

‘But the way I was treated with a child wasn’t fair. That’s the bit that got me the most.

‘And how easily done it can be. I should never have been flown through. It was an oversight.

‘Embarrassingly, the passport expired about three months before. I do take full responsibility. 

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

‘To feel vulnerable in the sense they genuinely let me through the country so easily is very upsetting.

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

‘I’m going there as a family to spend money on things to support their country and I’m treated in such a bad way.

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

‘Luckily, he was amazing. It was not nice for him at all.’

The parent revealed she hadn’t checked her son’s passport, which expired on 16 April 2024, before travelling and had ‘no idea the whole time’ it had passed until they arrived in Turkey.

Amber said: ‘I had no idea the whole time it was out of date.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

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

‘We came into Turkish airlines to the passport control. My son’s passport was the last passport at the bottom.

‘The officer went through our passports and said that it was all fine. He saw my son’s and just started shouting and saying, “the police are being called. Your passports expired and you won’t be allowed into the country”.

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

The mum revealed she and her son were detained by police officers for nearly 24 hours and claimed they were treated like ‘criminal[s]’.

Amber said: ‘They treated me like a criminal. They took me into an office with four officers and said “you’re not allowed into the country, there’s nothing you can do”.

‘They tried to get me to sign this paperwork and snatched the passports out of my hands, they wouldn’t give them to me.

‘Then they locked me in a room for 13 hours without what I’d call food. They put a rotten tomato and an egg in a box and kicked it across to me.

‘They gave me one 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 to have our cases in and they said, “no”. I did manage to get my son’s case because it was a tiny hand-held one. 

‘They threw his clothes round the room and checked through his bag for I don’t know what because I’d already been through security.

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

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

‘Some of the guards terrified me.’

Amber revealed her 31-year-old partner, who is a fencer, and his six-year-old son had to leave the airport and contacted the Turkish embassy to try and secure a temporary travel document.

However, the mum and son were forced to fly home the next day as there was no guarantee this paperwork would allow them entry into the country.

Amber said: ‘I had false hope that we were going to get in and then not get in and it was going to be alright. I was just counting down the minutes until we were going to be let out.

‘They told my partner he wasn’t allowed in the airport and told him he had to go through so he went in and went to the holiday.

‘My partner called the embassy and tried to sort out 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 get on was the next day at 3pm. They wouldn’t tell me when it was or where it was.

‘It was just awful. It came round to the next day and they wouldn’t tell me what flight it was.

She said the police officers arrived and ‘grabbed’ her to escort her to the plane without any food.

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

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

Amber said: ‘It’s ruined our whole holiday financially. We had to book separately for another flight home. Expensively, it was bad.

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

‘We’d taken the week off work and spent £6,000 that we’re never going to get back now.

‘I will never do that again in my lifetime. 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 you arrive’.

The Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs state on their website that visitors are ‘kindly advised to have a travel document/passport valid for at least six months as from the date of your arrival in Turkey’.

Gatwick said it is the airline’s responsibility to check passports and board passengers onto flights and that they don’t have any involvement.

Antalya Turkey airport said it was a matter for the passport police authorities to comment on.

SunExpress airline and the Turkish Police Association and their passport division have been approached for a comment but failed to respond.