Holidaymakers Mark and Sharon Townsend have told how drunken skinheads turned their dream break in Tunisia into a nightmare.

The couple, both 52, of London Road, Chippenham, spent £2,400 on the Thomas Cook holiday with daughters Megan, 17, and Amie, 13.

They were woken up on the third night of their stay when two intruders broke into their room at 4.30am.

Mr Townsend, an engineer, said: “Two drunk Lithuanian skinheads got into our room. My wife stayed in the room to try and reason with them while I went to report it. The guy on reception said he would get security.

“When I got back to my room the two drunks had gone so we went back to sleep. An hour or so later we could hear a room below us being smashed up.”

His wife, a sales assistant at Leigh Delamere services, said: “My husband was down at reception. I heard noise outside so I went out to see what was going on, as the girls came running out really scared, shouting ‘mum, mum, mum, there’s some men in our room’. I went in and said ‘you scared my children, get out’. They told me they wanted women and drink.”

Mr Townsend said: “They kicked down two doors to get into our daughters’ room. As you can imagine they were petrified.”

The men were taken away by police and the family was moved to another part of the hotel. Back home they wrote three letters of complaint to Thomas Cook and received an apology but no more.

“We felt we were entitled to a full refund and compensation but received nothing. We booked our honeymoon with Thomas Cook in 1998 and since then booked all our major holidays with them.”

A Thomas Cook spokes-man said: “Although incidents of this kind are extremely rare, we are liaising with our hotel partner to establish exactly how Mr and Mrs Townsend’s room was apparently allocated twice.

“We are continuing to thoroughly investigate this incident as a matter of priority, and are liaising with the party with a view to resolving this matter to their satisfaction. The welfare of our customers is of primary importance to Thomas Cook, and we are concerned to hear of any incidents of this type while on holiday.”