I’m A Celeb star ‘detained’ at Maldives airport
Reality TV star Georgia Toffolo was detained at Male airport on her way to a holiday in the Maldives because of damage to her passport.
The I’m A Celebrity 2017 winner and star of Made in Chelsea took to Twitter and Instagram for several hours asking followers to help her, fearing she faced Christmas in a detention centre.
She said on Twitter: "I have been detained at Male airport for a page missing on my passport. I am very scared."
Toffolo, known as Toff, said staff took away her passport, meaning she was ‘trapped’.
She said: "I don’t know what else to do I have been here for hours. I am not allowed to board a flight home because of my damaged passport but I am also not allowed to leave the airport. Please help."
She was released on at around 2pm UK time on Sunday and thanked the UK government for helping her.
She tweeted: "Extremely grateful that the British government worked with Maldivian representatives. Pushed by the UK press too (so epic thank you!) Also thank you to Maldivian immigration for letting me in to your beautiful country!
"In spite of me crying for nine hours and scaring everyone at the airport, I made some lovely friends (the group of seven airport guys that didn’t leave me while I was wailing) on reflection they couldn’t leave me, because I was being detained."
Toff said she was ‘traumatised but grateful’, adding: "Please everyone check your passports I didn’t realise that two pages had fallen out of the centre."
In the jungle, Toff struck up a friendship with Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s father, Stanley, who was following her social media posts.
The UK Passport Agency says a damaged passport, including those with missing or detached pages, cannot be accepted as proof of identity.
Picture: Twitter
Lisa
Lisa joined Travel Weekly nearly 25 years ago as technology reporter and then sailed around the world for a couple of years as cruise correspondent, before becoming deputy editor. Now freelance, Lisa writes for various print and web publications, edits Corporate Traveller’s client magazine, Gateway, and works on the acclaimed Remembering Wildlife series of photography books, which raise awareness of nature’s most at-risk species and helps to fund their protection.
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