A FAMILY of six from Kidderminster are trapped on a holiday from hell in a Spanish hotel they have described as worse than prison.

Paul Buckley, his wife Sarah and their four children, the youngest just 17 months, have been forced to endure what he describes as the "filthy and dangerous" Sun Sea Hotel in Benidorm on the Costa Blanca for a week because their travel agent demanded £500 to transfer them. And they still have two weeks of their holiday remaining.

Speaking directly from Spain the furious father, of Addenbrooke Crescent, told the Shuttle/Times and News: "I'd rather go to prison than stay here. It's filthy and rotten and I wouldn't let a pig stay in it."

He also claimed that despite specifically requesting family-friendly accommodation they had been let down and claimed his children had been placed in danger.

He said: "We can't leave the kids alone for a minute in case they get out on to the balcony, which is 100 feet in the air and has bricks missing," he said. "My one year-old lad could fall off and kill himself."

"When my wife booked the holiday, which cost £1,289, from Going Places in Kidderminster we asked for a family hotel," he said.

"They didn't tell us the children's paddling pool was 12 feet deep, or about the two-mile trek up a bank to get to the hotel, the 99 steps up to our apartment which should have been on the ground floor, the patio doors that don't lock or the building site next door."

Mr Buckley, 36, claims that Airtours - in charge of accommodation in Spain - agreed the hotel was unsuitable for children but would not transfer them without a £500 payment.

"When my wife phoned the office in Kidderminster to complain they said they never told her the hotel was suitable for children - but would we be here with four kids if they hadn't?"

And he said his family were not suffering alone.

Earlier this week, he said another Kidderminster family fled the hotel, while the Shannon family, of the Habberley estate, Kidderminster, also want to leave but are unable to.

Now the Buckleys and the Shannons - with seven children between them - are desperately trying to arrange flights back to England, which may cost £80 per person.

"I've travelled abroad five or six times before, and I've never had any problems," Mr Buckley added. "But this is beyond a joke: when you try and run a bath little fish come up through the plughole."

After being contacted by the Shuttle/Times and News, a spokeswoman for Airtours, which owns Going Places, said the company was now investigating the complaints.