A British couple has been handed a suspended jail sentence after admitting to abandoning their teenage son in a Majorca hotel and attempting to fly back to the UK without him.
The unnamed parents were arrested at Palma airport on Wednesday as they tried to board a flight home. Their 17-year-old son had refused to join them on a bus to the airport, prompting them to leave him at the Bellevue Hotel Club in Alcúdia.
During a fast-track hearing at a court in Inca on Thursday, the couple pleaded guilty to child abandonment. They received an 18-month prison sentence, suspended for one year.
According to the court ruling, the family had been on holiday and were preparing to return to the UK. When their eldest child refused to go, the parents decided to proceed without him, leaving him at the hotel without accommodation or any means of support.
