British girl, 16, is rescued from Marbella house where she was found naked after leaving nightclub with group of men: Five males including a Brit are arrested after she called for help
- The teenager and a 20-year-old Lithuanian woman were rescued by police
- SOS call was sent to police by a friend of the girl, who had been called for help
- Officers discovered weapons in the house, including a machete
- Male British suspect broke his ankle jumping from a balcony attempting escape
Spanish police have arrested five males including a Brit and an Irishman suspected of unlawfully detaining a 16-year-old English girl and a 20-year-old Lithuanian woman in a Costa del Sol house where weapons were found.
An SOS call from the teenager is said to have sparked the police response, which ended with the five arrests and the seizure of weapons including a machete, as well as a simulated pistol and submachine gun.
The English girl 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. Both were admitted to hospital after the rescue.
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 English girl 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 (file picture), Spanish daily El Mundo reported. Both were admitted to hospital after the rescue
Police received the alarm call around 5am on Sunday from a female friend of the English girl, who said the teenager had phoned her ‘crying and distressed’ claiming she was with several men who had weapons, before the line went dead.
When she rang her back she could hear a man asking the tearful girl for her smartphone PIN, according to the El Mundo report.
Police accessed the property where they made most of the arrests after spotting what appeared to be a pistol and a knife on an outside terrace and seeing youngsters in a room inside, who were said to have ignored officers’ requests to let them in.
The 20-year-old arrested British man is said to have broken his ankle after jumping from a first-floor window of the property to try to escape police, while 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 after two other men described as a Moroccan and a Finnish 17-year-old were held inside the house.
A police spokesperson said: ‘National Police officers have arrested five youngsters including a minor in Marbella for their alleged responsibility in a crime of unlawful detention.
‘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.’
Earlier reports had suggested the two females had been sexually assaulted by the group, though police confirmed the pair said in a statement they had both voluntarily gone to the apartment after meeting the men at a nearby club, and that no sex crimes had taken place.
The second woman rescued by police has been described as a 20-year-old Lithuanian found semi-naked and ‘drowsy’ in bed beside a weapon initially believed to have been a Thompson sub-machine gun.
She 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.
The incident in the upmarket Puerto Banus comes after police revealed in an unrelated case last month they had arrested two women accused of spiking the drinks of a pair of foreign male tourists they had met in a nightclub there, stealing their belongings after going back to their holiday apartment with them.
And in 2015, Irish actor Andy Quirke revealed a holiday nightmare after an opiate-based drug was slipped into his girlfriend’s drink during a night out in the popular Spanish resort, known for its rich and famous clientele.