Holidaymaker's nightmare Butlin's break as whole family gets sick from suspected norovirus

When Paul Ditchburn set off from home to enjoy a Butlin's holiday with the kids he could not wait.

But his initial excitement quickly turned into horror when the family of five became seriously unwell with suspected norovirus within hours of arriving at the site in Skegness. Butlin's has confirmed there have been "a small number of sickness incidents reported on the resort" but said norovirus has not been confirmed.

Paul, who has Parkinson's, said when he checked in on August 14, with his fiancé, Susan Johnson, and their three children, they were not informed that a number of guests at the park has been suffering from what they suspect is the contagious sickness bug. The day after arriving, the family spent time in the pool and went on to have a meal in the onsite restaurant, but later that night Paul's 11-year-old son, Ben, became violently sick.

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"My son was sick 14 times throughout the night to the point where I thought, 'we are going to have to get an ambulance for him,' because he couldn't stop being sick," Paul, from Durham, told the Chronicle. "Then I started being sick at 3am and my stepdaughter Lily [aged nine] started being sick around 5am.

"I rang Butlin's customer liaison as soon as they opened [on Wednesday] and said we needed housekeeping to give us some disinfectant.

"But I was promptly told over the phone that we needed to leave the site. I had to drive all the way from Skegness back to Durham on Wednesday (August 16) after being sick all night. They demanded that we left the site.

"It was a horrendous drive home because everyone was so tired."

After arriving back home, Susan, 47, and Paul's daughter Phoebe,