Young Irishman among five held for allegedly detaining two girls in Costa Del Sol

Mon, 14 Nov, 2022 - 11:44

Gerard Couzens

Police have arrested five males, including a young Irishman, who are accused of unlawfully detaining two young girls in a Costa del Sol house where weapons were found.

A Spanish police spokesman confirmed the arrest of the five men on suspicion of a crime of unlawful detention.

An SOS call from a 16-year-old British girl is said to have sparked the police response which ended with the five arrests and hospital for the two females as well as the seizure of weapons including a machete, a pistol and a submachine gun.

The English teenager was found naked, wrapped in a blanket and “very frightened” in one of the bedrooms of the house in the upmarket resort of Puerto Banus near Marbella, Spanish daily El Mundo reported. The paper also reported that she told police she was in a nightclub and had a hazy memory of getting into a car with two men but remembers nothing else.

The second woman rescued by police was found semi-naked and “drowsy” in bed beside a weapon believed to be a Thompson sub-machine gun. However, Spain’s National Police in Malaga insisted there was no evidence any sex assaults had taken place and the two girls at the property had told investigators they had gone there voluntarily and consumed alcohol.

The 20-year-old British man arrested is said to have broken his ankle after jumping from a first-floor window of the property to try to escape police. The Irishman was held near iconic party-spot the Ocean Club in Puerto Banus after a police chase.

According to the El Mundo report, a girl told police her friend had phoned her “crying and distressed” claiming she was with several men who had weapons before the line went dead. When the friend rang her back, she could hear a man asking the tearful girl for the PIN number of her mobile phone.

Police accessed the property where they made most of the arrests after spotting a pistol and a knife on an outside table terrace and seeing youngsters in a room inside said to have ignored officers’ requests to let them in. A police officer is understood to have been injured during a struggle which ended with the arrest of the unnamed Irish youngster and an Iranian suspect.

The British detainee was taken to hospital and two other men - described as a Moroccan and a Finnish 17-year-old - were held inside the house.

The other girl found in the house also told police a similar story to the English girl, saying she remembered being in a nightclub and getting in a vehicle to go to another bar, but nothing after that. It was not clear if the two females knew each other and had been out partying together, and whether they were on holiday or live in the area.

Police statement

Spanish police said in a statement: “National Police officers have arrested five youngsters including a minor in Marbella for their alleged responsibility in a crime of unlawful detention. The incident under investigation took place about 5am yesterday (November 13).

“A call from a friend alerted police to the fact a teenage girl was in a house with several men and there were weapons in that property. On arrival at the property, police found two girls who were both minors and arrested five young men, one of them with a broken ankle he sustained after falling from a wall in an attempt to escape.

“Inside the property a pistol and a submachine gun - which were later both discovered to be simulated weapons - were found, as well as a machete and a knife. Everything is pointing to the girls meeting the boys in a nightclub in Puerto Banus and going voluntarily to a nearby house and consuming alcohol.

“The girls have been assisted in hospital with nothing pointing at this stage, including the testimony of the girls themselves, to any sex crime taking place. The investigation remains open until the facts of what actually happened have been completely clarified.”