Family in care after parents collapse drunk

Published on Sunday 4 May 2008 22:36

A BRITISH couple on holiday in Portugal had their three young children temporarily taken into protective custody after staff at their hotel accused them of being so drunk that they passed out.

Hotel staff in Vilamoura, in the Algarve, called police after Eamon McGuckin, 34, and his wife Antoinette, 32, collapsed while on holiday on Friday night. They were rushed to a health centre in nearby Loule while their children, one-year-old Adam, two-year-old Amy and Aaron, six, were taken to the Refugio Aboim Ascensao children's home in Faro.

Dr Luis Villas-Boas, the home's director, said the incident was "very, very shocking". He added: "It is the first time it has happened in my 22 years working at this home."

The incident happened on the eve of the first anniversary of the disappearance of Madeleine McCann, who went missing from her family's Algarve holiday flat while her parents dined nearby. Referring to the McCann case, Dr Villas-Boas said: "The press were not around – they were very fortunate in that there was very heavy news from Great Britain that day."

The couple, from Northern Ireland, arrived with their children at the Aparthotel Mourabel in Vilamoura on Friday for a week's holiday. The Aparthotel Mourabel's manager said the parents and their three children went out for dinner nearby at about 8pm.

The manager claimed that, when they arrived back at the hotel at about 10pm, the father passed out on the sofa in reception and could not be woken. He added: "The lady, she tried to go with the children to the apartment. A Spanish woman came and found me and told me there was a woman with a child who was drunk.

"She was struggling with the pushchair, swaying around from side to side. The six-year-old boy was pushing the other buggy with the two-year-old girl in it. We put her and the children inside the bar. She was sitting on a chair and she fell asleep and never woke up.

"We tried to wake her, we tried to put some water on her face, but she was very, very bad. She started to be sick every minute."

The couple were taken to hospital and hotel staff looked after the children until social services arrived with court papers.

Dr Villas-Boas said his children's home was called just after midnight and asked to provide emergency shelter.

The youngsters were given a quick hospital check-up in Faro and then arrived at the home at about 5am on Saturday. They were returned to their parents at midday the following day.

A spokesman for the local police in Vilamoura said: "Staff called us at 10pm as the children were crying and they could not revive the parents, who were both out cold.

"We arrived to assess the situation and called the Inem (Portugal's national medical emergency service] as the parents were unconscious, and they were taken to hospital.

"The Inem called the social services. We looked after the children until the social services arrived and they took them away."