BBC to air documentary on Kirsty Maxwell and Craig Mallon
BBC to air documentary on Kirsty Maxwell and Craig Mallon
A TELEVISION documentary on the BBC is planned covering the death of Scottish newlywed Kirsty Maxwell in a fall from a 9th-floor Benidorm hotel.
Spanish reporter Ainhoa Urcelay is working with the BBC on the production, and says: “With a tragedy of this magnitude, many probes are launched which are hindered by the obvious cultural differences and language barriers.”
The programme, produced by STV for BBC Scotland, focuses on how Mrs Maxwell's grieving family and friends, including her widower Adam Maxwell (pictured), are coping after she lost her life on a hen weekend in the Costa Blanca holiday capital.
The documentary will also feature the parents of Craig Mallon, 26, a Scottish tourist killed with a single punch outside the Rockefellers' nightclub in Lloret de Mar (Girona province) in May 2012.
In both cases, other British tourists are believed to be involved.
Kirsty (also pictured) had gone out with her group of female friends and is believed to have entered the wrong hotel room upon her return to the resort in the Rincón de Loix neighbourhood, known locally as La Zona Inglesa, or 'The English Zone'.
It is believed she initially went to her own 9th-floor room and slept for a while after getting back to the hotel at around 05.00 on April 29, 2017, but for unknown reasons, went up to the 10th floor at around 07.00, where some of her friends were staying, and reportedly called at the wrong door.
She entered a room occupied by five young British men whom she had no connection with and did not know personally.
The men were all drinking and taking drugs, and one of them had a criminal record for sexual assault in the UK.
Kirsty fell from the terrace outside the men's room, and they were interrogated, but have since been released with charges.
Police said their statements were 'full of contradictions', but as yet the exact circumstances have never been confirmed.
Kirsty's family has sent out numerous appeals via the press and social media calling for witnesses.
And who killed Craig, a quantity surveyor from Coatbridge, Lanarkshire remains a mystery to this day.
CCTV footage was found last year which his family hoped would shed fresh light on the case, but the person seen punching him in the side of the head has never been identified.
“When he was out with his friends, if any argument broke out, Craig was always the peacemaker,” said his father, Ian, who recently suffered a heart attack as a result of the stress.
Craig's mother Antoinette Mallon died less than a month ago, just before her 49th birthday, and friends say she was 'never the same' after losing her son.
Ian Mallon, and Kirsty's family, have hired private detective David Swindle to take on their cases.
Swindle is famous for cracking the mystery around the notorious Scottish serial killer Peter Tobin after one of his victims, Polish national Angelika Kluk, was found death under the floorboards in 2006 in St Patrick's Church in Glasgow.
He has criticised the 'slowness' of the Spanish police and the fact they have not kept Craig's family involved.
The detective homed in on four young French men, whose car was towed away for being illegally parked next to Rockefellers and who were right in the middle of the crowd when the fatal punch was delivered.
