Covid: Holidaymakers want court action over South Africa quarantine

Kate and Alex Freed are halfway through their quarantine

Holidaymakers returning from South Africa are considering court action after long-awaited trips ended in quarantine.

Couples have told the BBC they have spent thousands of pounds in hotel fees despite following all the Covid rules before travelling.

The discovery of the Omicron variant led to a snap decision to add countries including South Africa to the red list.

The government said its focus was safeguarding the vaccination programme.

More than 40,000 people have signed a petition against the overnight move.

A judicial review on making people pay for mandatory hotel quarantining is being sought at the High Court on Thursday.

Cape Town's scenery is famously beautiful

Kate and Alex Freed from Borehamwood, Hertfordshire, had already been forced to postpone their wedding four times by lockdowns before finally tying the knot and jetting off to Cape Town at the start of November.

But the detection of the new variant saw the UK close its borders to South Africa, amongst others, from 29 November - just two days before they were due to return home.

'Three-hour bus trip to hotel'

"It does feel like Covid has been a bit of an enemy to us," said Mr Freed, 30, who was supposed to start a new job last week but instead finds himself holed up in a Holiday Inn Express at Heathrow Airport, at a cost of £5,000.

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The couple said the conditions they were forced into "defeat the point" of trying to prevent the spread of Covid, as they were kept on a bus for three hours with other potentially infected guests.

"The hotel is a 30-second drive from the terminal," Mrs Freed said.

"We were stuck on a bus for three hours, all cooped up... If one guest had Covid on that bus it would have spread, so it defeats the point."

'Catch 22 trying to get home'

Apart from the "huge" expense of their rearranged weddings, an additional week abroad, and a loss in wages, they said there had been a "disgusting" inflation of prices when the hotel rooms were normally £80 a night.

Mrs Freed said she was also angry the UK brought in its travel ban overnight without the previous grace periods. It was a "literal game of roulette... a Catch 22 situation," to try and get home, she said.

A place in a quarantine hotel was needed to book a flight home, but booking a hotel needed a flight reservation too, and was "virtually impossible" to find both available simultaneously.

Emily Mennie and Owen Hancock are in a quarantine hotel in east London, at a cost of nearly £4,000

Their experience was mirrored by Emily Mennie and Owen Hancock from Tooting, south London, who had gone to visit family in South Africa.

They were left in "real panic" when the travel ban was introduced without warning.

The couple said they were left waiting for six hours between their flight arriving at 20:00 GMT and entering their hotel room in east London at 02:00.

They have also been left with a quarantine hotel bill of nearly £4,000.

"It's just going on credit cards for us at the moment and we'll have to work out a plan to pay that back at the beginning of next year," said Mr Hancock.

The couple is calling on the government to fund hotel quarantine costs for travellers caught in the same situation when new measures are imposed at short notice.

They are supporting law firm PGMBM's efforts to win a judicial review of the policy, which is expected to be heard at the High Court on Thursday.

Tom Goodhead, Managing Partner of PGMBM, said the policy had led to the "false imprisonment" of people who are fully vaccinated and have tested negative, who he said "should not be detained in this way".

"The idea that they need to pay for the privilege of their own imprisonment is outrageous."

"It is for this reason that we are taking the UK government to court. If we are successful, people like Owen and Emily could eventually be entitled to compensation."

A spokesman for the Department for Health and Social Care (DHSC) said: "The quarantine measures we have in place are minimising the risk of variants coming into the UK and safeguarding the hard-won progress of our vaccination programme.

"The majority of passengers who have used the Managed Quarantine Service have been satisfied with the service. All complaints are treated seriously and are investigated fully."

Heathrow Airport and the Holiday Inn Express at Terminal 4 declined to comment on the complaints, saying transfers and quarantine hotels are the responsibility of DHSC.