Daily Mail - 17.08.2019

Daily Mail, Saturday, August 17, 2019 Page 27

A CRUISE ship barman has been

sacked after allegedly tricking a

passenger into telling him the

passcode of her husband’s missing

mobile phone during a game of

‘Mr and Mrs’.

Paul Tierney, 54, mislaid his iPhone 7

Plus on the first morning of a week-

Airbnb party

guests ‘are

making a

mess of Bath’

GUESTS at Airbnb ‘party houses’

have been accused of creating

a litter problem, attracting rats

and seagulls, in an upmarket

historic city.

Angry locals in Bath say those

hiring properties from the

short-term rental firm and its

rivals online generate large

amounts of waste.

While most guests rent smaller

homes or even single rooms,

some hire larger properties for

parties, resulting in more rub-

bish left out on the street, which

attracts rats and seagulls.

Research has suggested there

are at least 90 large apart-

ments let for occasions such as

stag and hen parties in the well-

heeled Georgian city.

Councillor David Wood said

local officials would lobby the

Government for greater regu-

lation of Airbnb and urged resi-

dents to report problem prop-

erties to the city council.

Airbnb said there is ‘no evi-

dence’ its guests cause litter

problems in Bath, and most

hosts have ‘green practices’.

By Neil Sears

Con voyage!

‘We couldn’t believe it’: Janet and Paul Tierney on a previous cruise

Cruise barman

‘tricked couple

into giving him

phone PIN with

Mr and Mrs quiz’

long, £2,600 Mediterranean

cruise with his wife Janet.

They believe that when crew

member Suar Andika had later

got his hands on it, he must

have known who it belonged to

because the screensaver was a

photo of Mr and Mrs Tierney.

Without knowing the PIN,

however, the smartphone was

useless to Andika as he couldn’t

unlock it and start enjoying all

of its features himself.

So when the couple visited

the on-board bar he worked in,

outwardly charming Andika

seemingly seized the opportu-

nity to get them to play an

impromptu game of ‘Mr and

Mrs’ with him as they chatted.

In the popular TV quiz show

of the same name, people

answer questions about their

other half in a test of how well

they know each other.

Mrs Tierney, 55, said one of

the questions Andika asked her

was: ‘What is the passcode

number to Paul’s phone?’ She

account to download the con-

tacts and photos from his ‘lost’

phone – and saw a series of self-

ies and videos of Andika.

In some, the smirking barman

was even wearing his cruise

work uniform and name badge.

In one video he can be seen

walking along a ship’s corridors,

and in another along a dock-

yard with an MSC cruise ship in

the background. Another photo

appears to show him smoking a

vape in a bathroom.

The penny then dropped that

the man the couple had consid-

ered to be a friendly crew mem-

ber had hoodwinked them.

Mr Tierney, an aircraft painter,

said: ‘Neither of us could believe

what we were seeing. It made us

feel sick. He seemed like a nice

guy and was very charming. But

he’s a despicable person. It’s

disgusting what he did.

‘He must have known all along

it was our phone – the screen-

saver was of the two of us.’

The couple had sailed from

Brindisi, Italy, on June 1. The

cruise included stop-offs at

other ports in Italy as well as

Croatia and Greece.

Mr Tierney was convinced

he had put the phone in a safe

in their cabin, but after search-

ing for it and asking staff if

it had been handed in, was una-

ble to track it down. MSC has

It costs a packet... the shop

that’s selling crisps for £9.99

By David Wilkes

Sacked: Suar Andika

‘He was very

charming’

A SHOP in Edinburgh is selling packets of crisps

for nearly £10 to unsuspecting visitors for the

city’s Fringe Festival.

Kingdom of Sweets, which imports American

snacks and sweets, prices a 226g pack of Chee-

tos Flamin’ Hot Crunchy at £9.99 and a 198g

pack of Herr’s Jalapeno Flavoured Cheese Curls

at £6.99. They can be bought from online retail-

ers in the UK for £3.90 and £3.49 respectively.

British snacks are also being sold at significant

mark-ups, with single KitKat, Wispa and Flake

bars priced at £1.99 – compared with 75p at a

nearby Co-op. Angus Duncan, 25, who lives in

Edinburgh, said: ‘That shop has always been a

tourist trap. It’s just somebody trying to relieve

tourists of as much cash as they can.

‘It is the middle of the Fringe, the city is packed

with people. Tourists are being treated with

contempt for a quick buck.’

A spokesman for Kingdom of Sweets defended

the pricing, saying: ‘What our customers love

about our stores is the emporium experience.

‘While some of the brands we stock appear

mainstream, they are actually hard to find.’

Daily Mail Reporter

‘It made us

feel sick’

apologised and sacked Andika

after he was found to have the

phone, which has been returned

to Mr Tierney by post. He

said MSC also paid for the

£300 replacement which he

bought on eBay.

It was not clear if Andika had

admitted stealing the phone

himself or if he claimed to have

got it from someone else in

good faith.

Yesterday an MSC spokesman

said: ‘Disciplinary action was

taken against a male crew mem-

ber who was in possession of a

stolen iPhone, and he was

immediately dismissed.

‘MSC Cruises takes the safety

and security of our passengers

and crew extremely seriously.’

blurted it out without thinking

any harm could come of it.

The couple, from Kirkby, Liv-

erpool, went on to enjoy the

rest of their holiday on board

the Mediterranean Shipping

Company’s (MSC) liner Musica,

which has 1,268 passenger cab-

ins and a crew of around 990.

But after they got home, they

were left ‘feeling sick’ when Mr

Tierney bought a new smart-

phone, synced it with his iCloud