This is the shocking moment a Benidorm hotel receptionist allegedly sneaks into a British mum’s room before sniffing and stealing her underwear after she set up a secret camera to catch him.
Rara Armstrong, from Gloucester, took her 11-year-old son on a family holiday to Benidorm, Spain, where she said she felt “creepy” when the hotel employee asked for her number and to buy her a coffee.
The man then left a bottle of prosecco in her room “to apologise”, prompting her to set her son’s iPad to record the door while she and her son went to dinner in case he entered her room again.
In a “surreal” twist, the receptionist can be seen on the video entering the room and apparently rummaging through what Ms Armstrong claims is her laundry bag.
The footage shows the man, who was wearing a smart shirt and trousers, taking what appears to be a thong out of the bag and apparently sniffing it, before putting the item in his back pocket.
This is the shocking moment a Benidorm hotel receptionist allegedly sneaks into a British mum’s room before snooping around and stealing her underwear after she set up a secret camera to catch him
Rara Armstrong (pictured on holiday), from Gloucester, took her 11-year-old son on a family holiday to Benidorm, Spain, where she said the employee made her feel uncomfortable when he asked for her number and to take her for coffee.
The footage shows the man, wearing a smart shirt and trousers, taking what appears to be a thong out of the bag (left) and apparently sniffing it (right), before putting the item of clothing in his back pocket.
“I felt horrible, I felt very violated. I was there with my son and that man was supposed to be a staff member,” Armstrong said.
“It was crazy. I wasn’t expecting anything like that,” she added of the “surreal” moment captured during her vacation in May.
The mother-of-one said she first met the man when she went to the hotel reception on her first day to ask why her room key didn’t work.
She claims that it was then that he asked her to take her out for coffee and when she refused, he asked for her phone number.
“I was a little scared by that and thought, ‘I just got here, this is the last thing I need,'” she said.
“But I didn’t complain because I didn’t want to ruin the holiday from the moment we arrived.”
After firmly rejecting the man, Ms Armstrong discovered a few hours later that he had signed up to her OnlyFans account. She suspects he used her hotel booking details to track her down.
She said: ‘He was texting me and saying ‘Oh, I can’t believe you’re in Spain’. At first I didn’t realise it was him.
“I said, ‘Have you seen me at the airport or anywhere else?’ And he said, ‘Yeah, you’re at the hotel where I work.’ And I thought, ‘Oh my God.’ He was looking me up on the Internet.
“I said, ‘This makes me feel so uncomfortable and it’s so unprofessional. I’m here with my son and this is not acceptable.’ And he said, ‘I’m so sorry, please don’t tell anyone.’ I said, ‘I won’t, but please leave me alone.'”
She claims the staff member said she was too “sexy” for him to resist after she reprimanded him for asking her out.
After returning from dinner and discovering a bottle of prosecco in the room on her last night, Ms Armstrong decided to prop up her son’s iPad to film the door in case he came in again.
Ms Armstrong messaged him on OnlyFans to confirm that he was the one who dumped her, and the man allegedly responded saying he was “sorry for upsetting you”.
After filming him entering her room and rummaging through it, she said she was angry with herself for not reporting him when he behaved “inappropriately” on the first day.
She said she took her son to Reception at a nearby hotel and the staff there arranged for her and her son to stay in a new room for the last night of their holiday, before returning to the UK the following day.
The man appeared to put the alleged thong in his pocket before leaving Ms Armstrong’s hotel room.
After filming him entering her room and rummaging around, Ms Armstrong said she was angry with herself for not reporting the employee when he was “inappropriate” on the first day by asking her out.
LoveHolidays, who she booked the holiday with, apologised for her ordeal and said the hotel sacked the man immediately the following morning after she reported it to staff.
However, they are refusing to refund or compensate her for her holiday because she did not report the incident to them or the police before returning home.
Ms Armstrong says she was unable to report the incident to police because it happened on her last day of travel and she did not want to miss her flight.
Since returning to the UK, Ms Armstrong has been unable to lodge a police complaint in Spain and says the hotel will not refund her stay or offer her any compensation due to the lack of a police report.
Ms Armstrong also claims her hotel says she was told to report the incident to the police, but she says they never did and instead asked her not to show the video to anyone.
“It’s been a real nightmare to get any kind of justice,” he said.
She now hopes to warn other women to report these “perverts” immediately and possibly install recording cameras if they suspect something is wrong.
Ms Armstrong said: ‘My advice to others would be to just be very vigilant. If someone is behaving inappropriately towards you, report it straight away. It might be better to have a security lock on your door or something.
“And maybe record your room, that seems like a good thing to do, so you have evidence and the hotel can’t deny that it happened.”
The hotel declined to comment.
LoveHolidays explained that because Ms Armstrong did not inform them while she was still on holiday, they did not have the opportunity to provide her with support or advise her on the process of reporting the issue to the police at the time.
They said that for this reason LoveHolidays does not offer any compensation.
A LoveHolidays spokesperson said: ‘We are very sorry to hear about the experience Ms Armstrong had whilst on holiday.
‘Unfortunately we were not informed of the incident while she was on holiday, so we were unable to provide her with support or advice on how to file a police report during her stay.
“We have fully investigated the issue with the hotel and are confident that appropriate steps have been taken to ensure this does not happen again.”