A PROMISING Welsh international rugby league player claims his dreams of a professional career are in ruins after he contracted salmonella two days into a fortnight’s holiday in the Maldives.
Scott Bessant had appeared twice for Wales A and was his amateur side Newport Titans’ top scorer when he was invited to train with Super League side Celtic Crusaders.
He and his wife Leanne paid around £2,500 for a luxury Indian Ocean break in November as a final chance to relax before the couple were due to start IVF treatment and a new family together.
But after the holiday was ruined by what they claim was the food at the three-star Summer Island Village resort – and affected tourists were offered a £100 holiday voucher as compensation – they are now among a group of disappointed holidaymakers taking legal action against tour operator Cosmos.
They include a police officer from Cardiff who was going to use the holiday to propose to his girlfriend of four years and a couple from Somerset celebrating their silver wedding anniversary.
Mr Bessant, a full-back who scored on his international debut against Scotland last year, said he was too ill to keep up a testing training schedule set for him by the Crusaders, set up after he successfully trialled with their reserves, and missed out on a “once- in-a-lifetime chance” to win a place in their training squad as a result.
The 25-year-old from Pontypool travelled with Leanne, 36, to the 108-room hotel in the North Male atoll to celebrate their wedding anniversary but both were struck down with diarrhoea, vomiting and abdominal cramps.
He was diagnosed with salmonella on his return to the UK and still suffers from the illness.
He said a rapid loss of weight that took him from 13.5st to around 11.5st in a little over two weeks, cost him his place in the Crusaders reserves squad and a prime chance of becoming a full-time professional.
The full-back said: “I was in the form of my life, playing the best rugby I’d ever played. I’d had a great season, played for Wales and this was a once-in-a- lifetime chance to make the step up to the Crusaders.
“You only get one chance at something like that. I was confident I would take it.
“I had a good trial but I didn’t expect much more. But I got a phone call saying I had made the training squad.
“I tried to train, as ill as I was, but I was nearly passing out and the coach told me they needed fit players and would have to let me go. One disastrous holiday and the best shot I’ll ever have at my dream of playing professional rugby was gone, probably for ever.”
Mr Bessant, a welder, is now back training for the Titans, a feeder club for Wales A, but is yet to get back in the team.
He said: “If I’m not in the Newport squad I won’t be in the Wales A squad.”
In the Maldives, guests also had to cope with the water supply being cut off, leaving the toilets without flushing facilities in the midst of their illnesses.
Mrs Bessant, who was off work for three months as she recovered, said: “We had to keep running down to the beach to get water to flush the toilet, despite being weak and exhausted. The hygiene was poor and the resort constantly smelled of sewage.”
Mark Saunders, a police officer from Cardiff and a friend of Mr Bessant’s, also contracted salmonella during his stay, which ruined romantic plans to propose to his girlfriend of four years and fellow officer, Beverley Norman. The 26-year-old has yet to propose.
He said: “I really shouldn’t have mentioned [my plans] to my girlfriend because that compounded the misery.
“The holiday was a complete disaster. I booked it as a holiday of a lifetime but we weren’t able to enjoy it. Instead, I contracted this salmonella poisoning and was in crippling pain most of the time.
“We’ve asked for our money back, but we got a £100 holiday voucher.”
Travel law experts Irwin Mitchell are now handling legal claims for the holidaymakers.
Solicitor Amandeep Dhillon said: “Over the past few years we have succeeded in claims for damages on behalf of many clients who have suffered illness at various hotels in the Maldives.
“Despite this, these latest reports from our clients who stayed at the Summer Island Village are pretty shocking.
A spokesperson for Cosmos said: “It would be inappropriate to comment at this time now that it’s going through the legal process.”
Source: walesonline.co.uk
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