Terror Attack Survivors

A woman from Warrington has told us how she and her boyfriend ran for their lives when a gunman opened fire on a beach in Tunisia.

Published 26th Jun 2015

Terrified tourists have given graphic accounts of the attacks on Sousse and the panic that followed as people fled the gunfire.

Hollie Nicklin from Warrington was on holiday with her boyfriend Jac Randell when the gunman opened fire on the beach where they were sunbathing.

She's been speaking to our Chief reporter Michelle Livesey:

Olivia Leathley was with her boyfriend Mike Jones in her room at the Riu Bellevue Park hotel when she heard "loud bangs'' from the beach.

The 24 year old, who is head chef at The Cellar Key in Chorlton, said: We heard all these really loud bangs and we joked it was probably the hotel reps letting off fireworks. We just thought they were messing around. "We saw all these people running in from the beach. There was loads of whistles going from the reps. "We didn't really know what was happening so we came down to the lobby to find our Thomson rep and find out what was going on and they said 'everybody stay here we'll let you know what is going on'. "We found this girl called ... whose husband ... he'd been shot in the stomach in front of her. She got dragged away by hotel reps trying to get her to safety but she was a complete mess. She was in hysterics.'' She went on: "We were all just waiting in the lobby, a few hundred of us thinking what should we do, waiting for someone to give us instructions. Then all of a sudden, from the level just below the lobby there was a huge sound of loads of machine gun fire and one of the reps just said 'run'. "So me and my boyfriend just sprinted for the front doors. "I was crying and we heard the machine gun fire and it was so loud and it seemed like it was just behind us, it seemed so close. "There were about eight of us out the front just running towards the street and then another rep said 'not that way it's not safe, go that way', so we ran to the left and found this little office building on the hotel site and we ran in there and got to a room with no windows and just crouched and waited until they said it was OK.''

Her dad Glenn Leathley said: "She rang me in a panic at 12 o'clock. She was crying, she said there's gun fire on the beach and she was thankfully at that point in her hotel room with her boyfriend Mike.''

Olivia rang her father again five minutes later saying: "They have come into the lobby''. Mr Leathley said: "At that point she started running to try and find a safe place to hide.'' Mr Leathley said during the attack he didn't want to call her back in case her phone rang, alerting gunmen to her presence. He added: "She has since made contact to say she is safe and the hotel manager has assured the guests that everything is safe now. "We prayed a storm down here. We were just waiting for good news to come and thankfully it has.'' Olivia's boyfriend Mike Jones posted on Facebook: "For those of you who haven't seen the news yet, the hotel in Tunisia that Olivia Leathley and I are currently staying in was attacked by terrorists with machine guns a few hours ago. We are both fine, understandably shaken but otherwise unharmed.''