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An aerial view of Magaluf in Majorca (Image: Getty)
A British couple have been arrested as they tried to fly back to the UK after allegedly trashing their four-star Magaluf hotel room.
The pair fled the Innside by Melia Calvia Beach without owning up to the four-figure damage they had "deliberately" caused, it has been claimed.
A hotel worker went up to room 2439 shortly before they disappeared without formally checking out after managers received reports of loud noises. One of the guests answered the door and claimed everything was okay.
But after discovering the Brit holidaymakers had left, staff returned and entered the room and found two TVs smashed, a shower door broken, and several cups damaged with glass and bedclothes strewn all over the floor.
Londoners Aishah Tasnim, 28 and Yahya Habibullah Wahid, 27, were held at Majorca’s Palma Airport before their flights back to Britain after police were alerted, and held in custody for nearly 48 hours before being hauled to court for a speedy trial.
The couple were held at Palma Majorca Airport (Image: Getty)
On Saturday, they confessed to causing criminal damage after agreeing to strike a plea bargain deal with prosecutors.
They were told to compensate the hotel for the £875 of damage they had caused and accepted a fine of around £300 each.
It was not immediately clear this morning why the two Brits caused the damage, although as part of their plea bargain deal they accepted it was "deliberate" and not committed by accident.
Public prosecutors had said they wanted them to be hit with a higher fine before the matter was resolved in court in Palma.
The arrests occurred on Friday afternoon but were not made public until after the court hearing and the couple had spent a night in police custody. It is not yet clear if they have already handed over the money they owe or are paying in installments.
Locals in Palma have organised two large anti-mass tourism demonstrations already this year to protest over problems they say are caused by too many holidaymakers, including the lack of affordable housing because of the number of Airbnb-style rentals and traffic chaos.
Locals held overtourism protests in Majorca earlier this year (Image: Getty)
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They have also highlighted badly-behaving tourists as another problem.
Thousands of people attended the Palma events, one of a number of anti-mass tourism protests that have taken place around Spain this year in places like the Balearic Islands, the Costa Blanca and the Canary Islands.
Marchers were heard chanting ‘Tourists go home’ as they passed through a central square in Palma during the first protests on May 25.
A second huge protest in Palma on July 21 passed off peacefully, although some demonstrators used Spain’s Euros final win to poke fun at English tourists and others branded British holidaymakers “drunks.”
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