A mum "disgusted" by a visit to Pontins Brean Sands holiday park says she heard people telling a man to use heroin in the next-door chalet.
Rachel Charleston told Bristol Live her sons Oliver, 13, and William, 10, and their 11-year-old friend Jake were “traumatised” by their stay at the Burnham resort on Friday, May 17.
She says people in the adjacent chalet played “pounding rave music” throughout the night and claims she heard them encouraging a man to take heroin.
Mrs Charleston, 47, and the children travelled from Plymouth to Brean Sands. She said the issues with the neighbouring chalet started at around 7pm.
'Bedlam'
“It was rave music that you would play at festivals, constant bass music,” she said.
“I am in my late 40s – I know what rave music is. And the walls of the chalet were paper thin.
She complained about the noise to Pontins at 9.44pm, but claims security staff told her they could not leave the main gate.
Mrs Charleston, a business owner, says the music continued to blare until about 12am, when the holidaymakers next door went out.
She continued: “My son and I then woke up to more loud banging music at about 2am and lots of different voices.
“There were about six people in there. It was bedlam.
“I then heard a rather disturbing conversation by a male with a Mancunian accent, who was trying to get another male to take heroin.”
'Mortified'
Mrs Charleston claims she heard the first man say: “It will be OK, I have done heroin lots of times – take a big glass of vodka to numb the needle insertion.”
A girl then reportedly said: “Get the vodka down him and he will be OK.”
Mrs Charleston told Bristol Live: “The girl went off giggling and lots more people were shouting.
“This poor chap was saying, ‘I don’t want to do it.’ I could hear every word they were saying. They might as well have been sat on my bed.
“My younger son woke up and was very upset as he was worried these people were going to come into our chalet and hurt us. I was mortified.”
Shortly after this the noise quietened down, Mrs Charleston said.
She added: “When we woke up the first thing my 10-year-old said was he wanted to go home.
“All three of them were traumatised by this and we felt really unsafe. I was scared they would be stabbed by a needle or something.
“I myself am totally disgusted with the incident and I wanted to leave as soon as possible even though we had paid £89 for two nights’ stay.”
'Disturbing'
Mrs Charleston turned down an offer from Pontins to be moved to another room and returned to Plymouth after one night.
She said: “I worked in social services for many years and the disturbing thing is when we left I looked at all the other parents and felt sick as they had very young children and should know about the event.”
Mrs Charleston emailed Pontins on May 20 asking for a full refund, a letter of apology and an explanation of what will be done to prevent a similar incident happening again. The firm is still investigating.
She said: “I don’t expect to hear people talking about Class A drugs and trying to get someone addicted.
“They could have bloody died, I am not being funny. How do they let people like that into a family resort?
“I didn’t really care about the refund, I just wanted an apology. It’s just wrong.
“I will never be back again. I used to go all the time as a kid. It’s gone so downhill.”
A Pontins spokeswoman said: “We are already in direct communication with Mrs Charleston and our investigations are still ongoing.
"We will be able to issue a full response once these have concluded.”
