Relatives of the British victims of the Tunisia terror attack will sue tour operator TUI, a lawyer representing many of the families has said.
The announcement was made after a coroner ruled the victims were “unlawfully killed” by a gunman at a hotel in Sousse in June 2015.
Judge Nicholas Loraine-Smith rejected a finding of neglect against the tour firms and the hotel.
The 38 dead included 30 Britons. TUI has denied gross failure.
Judge Loraine-Smith ruled the Tunisian police response was “at best shambolic and at worst cowardly”.
On 26 June 2015, a gunman opened fire on holidaymakers staying in the popular resort of Port El Kantaoui, just north of Sousse in Tunisia, killing 30 British tourists and eight others.
So-called Islamic State (IS) said it was behind the attack by Tunisian student Seifeddine Rezgui.
“The simple but tragic truth in this case is that a gunman armed with a gun and grenades went to that hotel intending to kill as many tourists as he could,” the coroner said.
But Kylie Hutchison, a solicitor for 22 of the families, said it was crucial that the travel industry learned from what happened in Sousse.
She added: “On behalf of our clients who lost members of their family and those who suffered injuries in this terrible incident, we will now be preparing to commence civil proceedings against TUI.”
TUI maintained it was “wholly erroneous” to claim it had been neglectful and there was insufficient evidence of any gross failure.
Officers near the scene ran in the opposite direction to get more guns while the Islamist gunman sprayed bullets at sunbathers on the beach and threw grenades, the inquest heard.
He then stormed into the hotel to kill more victims.
It was only after an hour-long killing spree that Seifeddine Rezgui was shot dead by police.
There were emotional scenes in the packed courtroom of London’s Royal Courts of Justice as the coroner described how each of the victims came to their death, in alphabetical order.
The dead were aged between 19 and 80. Among them were three generations from one family – a young man, his uncle and his grandfather.
Families had wanted the coroner to consider whether neglect by holiday firm TUI or the hotel owners was a factor in their relatives’ deaths.
But he told them he could not because the law regarding neglect did not cover tourists who voluntarily agreed to go on holiday.
He added that he had not found a direct and causal link between the response of armed officers in the area and the deaths.
He said there were a lot of “what ifs” around the case, and better hotel security may simply have meant more people died on the beach.
The only factor that might have made a difference was if the hotel guards had been armed, he added.
“Having reviewed the legal advice on gun law in Tunisia, it’s clear this was not a realistic option,” he said.
In summing up at the end of a six-week hearing, the judge said holidaymakers had been “reassured” about safety before booking.
One man said his wife had raised the March 2015 attack at the Bardo museum in the capital Tunis with a travel agent, who told her it had been a “one-off” and the place was “100% safe”.
A Thomson travel agent said she would not say somewhere was completely safe, the inquest heard.
Source: BBC
