The mother of two children who were killed by carbon monoxide poisoning on holiday in Corfu has said Thomas Cook’s belated apology and promises to change are “just too little, too late”.
In her first television interview, heartbroken Sharon Wood said she does not trust the tour company, she does not believe it has learned lessons and claimed it has added to the grief that she and her family have had to cope with since her children, Bobby and Christi Shepherd, died in 2006.
She told ITV’s Good Morning Britain: “They fought us every step of the way until those 11 jurors said they had breached their duty of care and then it was like they had flipped a coin and suddenly they were on our side. They were going to implement changes and they were sorry – well, it was just too little, too late.”
Thomas Cook has been hit by a new wave of damning public criticism after an inquest jury this month decided that Christi, seven, and Bobby, six, were unlawfully killed and said the holiday giant had breached its duty of care.
Ms Wood claimed the travel firm had “contributed” to the “absolutely horrendous” pain that her family have had to endure.
It is “just the lack of human decency that any company should offer to their customers”, she added.
To add insult to injury, a “very intense” meeting with Thomas Cook Group chief executive Peter Fankhauser, just days after he told the inquest that his company had nothing to apologise for, included him asking her to trust him so the firm can move forward.
“Would anybody trust that company after how they have treated us?” she told Good Morning Britain.
The children were found dead in a bungalow in the grounds of a hotel in Corfuin 2006. They had been on a Thomas Cook holiday with their father Neil Shepherdand his partner, now wife, Ruth when they breathed in fumes from a faultyboiler.
Ms Wood, who is hoping to claw back some normality for herself and her surviving children, told the ITV programme: “I am always hoping that I can be an ambassador for safety abroad. I have been given a voice and, in Christi and Bobbi’s memory, I do not feel I can walk away.”
Ms Wood hopes that Thomas Cook will rethink its levels of social responsibilityand also take a leading role in a campaign to push through EU legislation tomake safety a key issue for the travel industry.
An ITV investigation found that the manager and the electrician who were convicted over the deaths are still working in hotels used by Thomas Cook.
Asked whether Thomas Cook had made changes in response to what happened to her children, Ms Wood said: “That does not suggest that they have, does it?”
Former chief executive Harriet Green led Thomas Cook until last year during a period in which the firm took legal action against the hotel involved and fought to stop inquests into the children’s deaths taking place in the UK.
Since the inquest, it has been revealed that the firm secured a £3 million compensation payout from the company that owns the hotel.
Ms Wood also rejected claims that Ms Green, who is believed to be in line for a lucrative shares windfall, tried to reach out to the family.
Ms Wood told the programme: “I do not know who she has reached out to but it certainly isn’t my family.”
It is believed that Ms Green could receive six million shares next month, and she said she will give two million shares to a charity to be chosen by the children’s parents, according to ITV News.