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[Johnson&Johnson]

Curse of the boozy Britons returns to Greek resorts

Foreign Office is launching an anti-rape campaign as resorts are invaded by young holidaymakers

Helena Smith in Athens
The Observer, Sunday July 27 2008

Article history

In the seaside resort of Faliraki it is a good year for Mayor Ioannis Iatrides. 'Mercifully our clientele this summer is a wonderful mix of people from all over Europe who know how to peacefully enjoy their time in the sun,' he enthuses. 'There are far fewer Britons, which means no rapes, no accidents, no drunken debauchery, no going on the rampage. I'm so relieved.'

But Iatrides's cause for cheer is someone else's headache. While Faliraki might be shaking off its notoriety as a 'modern-day Sodom', young Britons are still flocking to its neighbours in search of sun, sex and a hedonistic nightlife. Sometimes the result has been rape or even death, leaving bewildered Greeks to ask: what is wrong with the British?

In Malia on Crete, for example, the tourist season may barely have begun, but already a seemingly non-stop stream of Britons, many in their teens and most on their first trip abroad, have passed through the local courts. Evangelos Rossakis, the owner of a local supermarket, was last night recovering at home after being attacked by six British youths who had beaten him 'black and blue' because he had dared to ask them to drive less recklessly on quad bikes through the resort. Rossakis says his injuries are nothing next to the damage the teenagers later inflicted on his shop - or the time when a Briton bit off the nose of a bartender who asked him to leave.

Malia hasn't reported a sexual assault yet. But in Cavos, on Corfu, last week four Northern Irishmen were charged with gang-raping an English tourist, an act they allegedly filmed on their phones.

Meanwhile in Laganas, on Zakynthos, 17-year-old Matthew Cryer, from Sheffield, appears to have drunk himself to death last week; the previous week 15 English tourists were charged with 'lewd behaviour' after participating in an open-air oral sex contest.

'What is wrong with the British?' asked Yiannis Kyriakakis, a senior police officer on Crete. 'Why can't you have fun calmly? We try to be tolerant - after all, these are only kids, but we find ourselves asking why.'

Once it was Faliraki that seemed doomed as the capital of Brits behaving badly. A sleepy fishing village on the island of Rhodes, it had the misfortune in 2002 to be featured in the ITV series Club Reps, which followed the antics of holidaymakers travelling to the resort with tour operator Club 18-30. Viewers witnessed an orgy of binge-drinking, fighting, vomiting and casual sex.

The following summer, doubtless partly spurred by its TV infamy, tens of thousands descended on Faliraki, leading to dozens of arrests. Something had to be done and the Faliraki police sought advice from their counterparts in Blackpool, drawing on their experience in dealing with stag parties. A new police station opened in the centre of town staffed by 12 English-speaking officers who exercised a zero-tolerance crackdown on misbehaviour. As a result, Faliraki moved upmarket and appealed to families - but its problems merely seem to have been displaced elsewhere.

About three million Britons visit Greece every year, more than from any other country. Last summer, in a single week, there were three deaths, three cases of serious injury, three alleged rapes and nine arrests of UK citizens in 'anything goes' Laganas. Successive Greek governments have tried to improve the quality of its 'tourism product'. But they seem unable to halt the transformation of many resorts into nests of binge-drinking.

The Foreign and Commonwealth Office is concerned, too. This month it launched its first anti-rape campaign in Greece, following an alarming rise in sexual assaults on British women. Most victims claimed that the perpetrators were fellow UK holidaymakers. Simon Gass, the UK ambassador to Athens, said: 'Each year we see a disproportionate number of young people who get involved in arrests and sometimes even fatal accidents. We want to do more than just pick up the pieces when things go wrong and that's why we're launching this campaign to try to encourage young people to have fun on holiday but also to know their limits.' Thousands of advice-bearing posters, postcards, beermats and leaflets have been distributed at resorts popular with young Britons.

For officials such as Iatrides of Faliraki, the drive is a positive thing. 'I'm all for it,' said the mayor, who in past years has been forced to request help from British undercover policemen to patrol the streets. 'But you know these English kids will have to change character first.'

In Malia, where the locals staged protest marches against their British visitors last year, people are not hoping for quieter times. They are praying.

The size of the problem
15 million
The number of people who visit Greece each year

1,000
Britons who required hospital treatment in Greece in 2006

39
Reported rape cases last year in Greece

6,000
Bottle stoppers imported into Greece this year. They are used to prevent drinks being spiked with date rape drugs

44
The number of rapes reported by British holidaymakers between 1994 and 2002. One third of British women who are raped overseas are raped in Greece

3 million
British people who visit Greece each year

500
The number of cases involving passports lost or stolen by British nationals in Greece last year

[Oracle]

It doesn't stop even on their way back ..... :lol:

Panic as binge women try to 'get some air' at 30,000ft

Allan Hall in Berlin The Observer, Sunday July 27 2008

Two British women caused panic on a holiday flight from Greece when they attacked cabin staff with a vodka bottle and fought to open the emergency exit at 30,000ft, one screaming: 'I want some fresh air.'

The drunken pair had to be wrestled to the ground and restrained with plastic handcuffs as astonished passengers looked on. The XL Airways Boeing 737 charter flight from the Greek island of Kos to Manchester was forced to make an emergency landing in Germany where heavily armed police hauled away the women, aged 26 and 27, to cheers from other travellers.

They had been on a package holiday. On the return flight both were refused more alcohol because they were drunk, prompting one to take a bottle of vodka from her hand luggage. Passengers screamed as the women fought with flight attendants. 'It was a hell of a scene,' said a holidaymaker. 'It was a nightmare. The crew were brilliant, wrestling them to the ground and slapping plastic cuffs on them. We all thought we had had our chips.'

As a safety precaution the pilot put out a Mayday alert and diverted to Frankfurt-Main, Germany's biggest airport. The plane continued to Manchester after two hours. The 26-year-old is likely to face charges of interference in air traffic and attempted assault and the pair will probably face a bill of thousands of pounds from the airline for costs incurred during the landing. Both have been allowed to return to the UK.

[Tim Drayton]

I know. It is so nice to live here in peace and quiet in Cyprus, stick your head in the sand and ignore what is happening in the "old country". Why is it all going so wrong?

[Raymanoff]

DUE TO DEPRESSING lifestyle back in UK and everything being done by the rules... some people just trying to have some fun...

[Johnson&Johnson]

English... obsessed with beer, dogs and bad food

have a look over on cyprus living for proof of this

and they have the bloody nerve to criticize us Cypriots on every other post

[SSBubbles]

English... obsessed with beer, dogs and bad food

have a look over on cyprus living for proof of this

and they have the bloody nerve to criticize us Cypriots on every other post

What exactly was your thread then if not a 'dig'?

[Nikitas]

Back in the 60s psychiatrist Fritz Perls wrote about this mania of modern societies to regulate everything and anything but not taking into account human nature. Britain is the prime example of a society that supposedly regulates everything, even pen knives, in the hope that the regulation will do the trick. Obviously it does not.

It is ironic to think that in Crete the national folk dress includes a big sharp knife, every house has unregistered firearms, the production of alcohol is a traditiona pursuit, in short it is a British policemans nightmare. But it is not the armed locals who behave as violent drunks but the "civilised" visitors.

[Niki]

Generalisations - again!!! It makes people seem so ignorant.

My life in the UK involved honest decent people, good restaurants, good wine, people who looked out for each other, multi cultural friends, cultural events (theatre, galleries etc) and oh no.....people who cared about animals!! There is also a great deal of opportunity there for younger people who want a good education and a good start to their career even if they decide to eventually move away.

There are areas in the UK that have high crime rates, prolific knife attacks and binge drinking but every country has a mix of good and bad people and good and bad behaviour. The UK is far from perfect but not all people are beer swilling drunks and bad food eating louts.

[ttoli]

English... obsessed with beer, dogs and bad food

have a look over on cyprus living for proof of this

and they have the bloody nerve to criticize us Cypriots on every other post

Dont tar us all with the same brush, some of us moved here to escape what England and are just as fed up with the behaviour of a minority of Tourists.

[Nikitas]

Niki mou

I think you are missing the point a little here. Obviously there are the nicer things of life in the UK, the problem is that the behavior exhibited by the lager louts is not rare or unusual. Is binge drinking more popular than enjoying fine wine in the UK? Well, just look around and count how many businesses make a living out of binge drinkers and compare it to how many deal with connoisseurs.

All over the Mediterranean, licensing laws are loose or totally absent, you can drink at any time, but the local culture does not tolerate public drunkenness. In the UK I recall, being publically drunk earned you a badge of merit. It is this general climate of tolerance for the loutish and the violent that mystifies people hence the question by the police officer above: "what is wrong with the British?"

The problem has gone far enough here in Greece for locals to avoid going on holiday in spots popular with the British. In fact many travel agencies will entice you to a spot by mentioning that there are no British people there.

Does not anyone in Britain teach kids how to live well?