A COUPLE have said they will pursue legal action after their dream holiday became a nightmare.

Brett and Dominique Pattrick arrived at a hotel in the beach resort of Goa in India and hotel staff advised them to store their cash in a security box — only for £2,000 to go missing.

The pair, of Brookshaw Street, Bury, said they were horrified by their ordeal and blame reps from Thomson Holidays for "handling the situation poorly."

Now, they have approached travel law specialists from Manchester-based Irwin Mitchell Solicitors to explore the legal avenues open to them.

Dominique, a 29-year-old NHS therapist, said: "It was just a nightmare, from start to finish and I just cannot believe how things could go from bad to worse with such poor attention from the reps."

The couple, who got engaged and married in Goa on previous trips, arrived there on February 12 and checked into the three-star Silver Sands Holiday Village with friends Lorraine Pattrick and Christine Partlett.

On February 13, the group rented a safety box and put their cash in it — but it went missing on February 16.

Brett, a 31-year-old mechanical engineer, said: "I was in utter shock. To our horror and disbelief, we found every penny of our money stolen."

There were no signs that the box had been forced open, which lead the couple to deduce that hotel staff, who also had a key, stole the money and deliberately pointed security cameras away.

They made a formal complaint to local police, who made a written record accusing hotel staff of theft.

Then things went bad to worse.

"Rather than helping us or being horrified that something so bad could happen at their hotel, they were terrible," said Dominique.

She added: "They had the audacity to charge us £13 for the box and even charged me for a cup of coffee when I was trying to calm down because I was physically sick."

The couple changed hotel and spent most of the rest of the trip dealing with police, their banks and Thomson.

Dominique said: "The Thomson rep at the hotel did nothing. On one occasion, she arranged to meet me at the hotel and didn't even show up.

"When it first happened, other hotel guests were offering us £20 notes because we had no money. The rep did not help.

"The whole thing was a nightmare. You spend ages saving for a holiday and look forward to it and it becomes horrible.

"Brett works away so we savour all the time we spend together. Goa is a special place for us, but now I just associate it with bad feeling."

The couple have been told they can only reclaim £250 from their insurance due to a clause in their policy.

A Thomson Holidays spokesman said: "Thomson is sorry to hear of the group's complaint.

"As soon as we were made aware of their reported loss our holiday advisors in resort did everything that they could to assist, including helping them to secure a police report for their insurance claim.

"We would like to reassure customers that incidents of this type are extremely rare and also take the opportunity to remind customers of the importance of taking out a travel insurance policy when booking their holiday."