Two recent reports of violence against British residents and holidaymakers in Bulgaria will not have created good publicity for the country at a time when its tourism industry is suffering the fallout from the global economic crisis.  

The most harrowing piece appeared in the August 24 edition of the Scottish Sun. The story - written by David Goodwin - reported that a British couple had decided to return to the UK after they were savagely attacked in their home near Pleven on August 7 by a gang of machete-wielding thugs who also slaughtered their dogs.

The paper carried graphic pictures of injuries sustained by Alan Cantwell, 64, after his beating at the hands of the robbers.
Under the headline "Scots flee from Bulgaria brutes", the newspaper said that Cantwell and his wife, Sylvia, 63, were sleeping when they heard their dogs barking.

The couple’s daughter Yvonne is quoted as saying that while her father investigated the noise, one of the gang kicked in the bedroom door, pinned her mother to the bed, held a machete to her face and demanded money.

The Sun said that Cantwell was subsequently tied up in the garden and repeatedly hit with a pickaxe handle. The paper said that after Yvonne had alerted police and identified a member of the gang, the intruders returned to wreak revenge but found the house abandoned because the traumatised couple had moved from their secluded home into a hotel.

According to the paper, the gang also swooped on the home of another British couple who had helped the Cantwells contact the authorities. Both couples had decided to return to the UK following the raid. At the time of writing, the Cantwells had reportedly arrived back in Scotland.

Hotel hostages
Meanwhile, an earlier report in The Sun, dated August 18 and also written by Goodwin, related how a female tourist and her three "terrified" friends were held hostage in Bulgaria - by hotel security guards.

Under the headline "Cheeky Bulgars held us hostage", the story relates how a gang of "burly minders" ridiculed the four friends after ordering them to cough up "ransom" cash during a 90-minute ordeal.

Sally McQuade, 24, was quoted as telling the paper: "It was just horrible. They just would not let us go."
The newspaper claimed she was enjoying a two-week break in Sunny Beach with boyfriend Paul Ross, 27, and friends Shannon Strathdee and Lana Bourquin, both 20, when they were accosted.

According to the Scottish Sun: "The friends had been allowed to use facilities at a hotel next door, due to faults at their own accommodation at the Sunny Beach resort. But as they walked back to the Yavor Palace Hotel at 4am on Monday (August 17) they were grabbed and accused of trespass. Sally told how the guards ordered them to stump up 100 Bulgarian leva each for their freedom - before finally settling for 40 leva."

McQuade, of Grantown-on-Spey, Moray, is quoted as saying: "We were trying to find out what the problem was but one of them kept saying, ‘Shut up, shut up’."
McQuade added: "Afterwards they just sat with the receptionist of our hotel and laughed, joked and pointed at us."

Bulgarian-language news website Dnes.bg quoted representatives of Yavor Palace hotel who said that they knew of the incident but had no information about the Scots being asked to pay a fine.

The hotel, however, said that the Scottish holidaymakers had flouted hotel regulations, including a ban on jumping over the concrete wall of the hotel, instead of using the main entrance.

"We have set a 50 leva fine for people who make noise during the night, such as jumping in the pool or using the green areas as lavatories," said the hotel. "Tourists are allowed almost everything except for making loud noise and breaking doors, which we get a lot here. In the past year alone we have had close to 30 cases of doors broken by tourists," the hotel management said.

The hotel also commented on what it described as "the low standard" of behaviour of many of the British tourists in the resort.

UK taxpayers ‘subsidise’ Bulgaria
Perhaps surprisingly, neither the violent assault nor the "hostage-taking" featured in the Daily Mail, one of the most prominent "Bulgar-bashers" of all British media over the past few years.

But the newspaper, perhaps mindful of resentment against the EU by cash-strapped Britons, was quick to draw its readers’ attention to a tax increase next year.
"Every household in the UK will have to pay 257 pounds sterling towards the European Union next year," according to a report written on August 24 by James Chapman, after - the newspaper claims - "Labour signed away much of Britain’s hard-won budget rebate". The newspaper said that Bulgaria and Romania would top the list of recipients.

"As usual, the bulk of the budget will go on aid to the EU’s poorer countries and agricultural subsidies. This year Britain will pay 4.1 billion pounds net to the EU - 800 million pounds more than the 3.3 billion pounds forecast by the Treasury, By 2010-11 the net figure will be 6.4 billion pounds," says the newspaper.

The article concludes by saying that "increases have been caused by extra demands for funding by new members, including Bulgaria and Romania".