The wife of a Nottinghamshire man killed in the Tunisian terror attack says she had ‘expected to be informed of essential information’ as the couple arranged their fateful holiday.
Cheryl Stollery gave evidence at the Royal Courts of Justice, as part of inquests examining each victim of the terrorist attack, as well as the hotel, its security and travel advice given ahead of the incident.
Mrs Stollery, husband John and their son Matthew were on holiday in June 2015 when Seifeddine Rezgui opened fire on a beach and hotel at the beach resort of Sousse, killing 38 people including 30 Britons, including John.
Mr Stollery, from Walesby, had worked for Nottinghamshire County Council for more than 30 years and was a social worker who supported children in care.
Mrs Stollery and Matthew both survived the massacre.
Mrs Stollery told the inquests on Monday that the family were not aware of any security threats prior to or after the booking of the holiday, and that they had come back from another trip to the same resort in February to find that her father had died.
She said: “We had had a relatively good time, we had not been out of the resort, we just wanted a relaxing week, that was in February.
“Unfortunately, I didn’t know until I came back on February 15, that my dad had died of Alzheimer’s in the early hours of the Friday 13th morning.
“We had got some money left over from that holiday and John’s thoughts were: ‘life’s too short’, it had been a difficult time with my dad and his illness, so on February 25 John said ‘we know the dates, we can’t hang about because somebody else will want those dates at work, go in and book it’.
“And that was the day before my dad’s funeral. So I had been off work for two weeks, very much occupied with my dad’s funeral, and then I was back to work and, as I said in my statement, we go out in the morning early, we come back late at night, and hadn’t been aware and so, therefore, didn’t feel the need to look at the Foreign Office website.”
Mrs Stollery also said she felt that any information that she needed to know would be communicated to her.
“I felt or I believed that should there be anything untowards, the people in the Thomson’s shop in Retford would have alerted me, told me.
“I had contacted them on other occasions before March 28 and after March 28 in respect of some problems in booking the seat arrangements.
“So I expected them to inform me of any essential information that I had needed to know.”
There was no visible difference in security in the area from the time they went to the same resort in February 2012, she said.
“The day before the attack it was quite interesting, because there was a huge influx of people coming into the hotel but there didn’t appear to be any additional security.
“It was a lot busier then, but nothing else appeared to change.”
Between the Stollery’s February visit and their return to Sousse in June, three militants stormed the Bardo museum in Tunis in March and killed 22 people.
The Foreign Office has already told the inquest it decided to keep travel advice at the same level after this attack, and not to advise Britons against any travel to tourist areas of Tunisia, but the phrase “further attacks are possible” was added to the Government’s travel advice website.
