Tunisia survivor: 'We didn't see police for hours'

Cheryl Stollery Credit: ITV News

The widow of a victim of the Tunisia beach attack has told how she did not see police "for hours" after the gunman opened fire.

Cheryl Stollery recalled how when she and her husband John, 58, heard shots, they began running away but the gunman ran past her.

She turned around to warn her husband, only to see he had been shot to the ground.

Speaking to ITV News, she said: "To be quite frank, for hours I didn't see any police. Didn't see any national guard. The only time that I saw them, and heard helicopters, was after the event.

"We were all in the hotel and we were ushered into the dining room, which was a glass-fronted area - which wasn't necessarily a very safe place to be."

The coroner at the inquest earlier branded the police response as "at best shambolic and at worst cowardly".

Mrs Stollery is among the victim relatives planning to sue tour operator TUI.

She added: "A big professional company is responsible for sharing information and making sure that you're safe - that when you buy a product, you should be provided with that information so you can make informed decisions."

She went on to say that had she known about the risk of terrorism in Tunisia, she would not have booked a holiday there - and "certainly wouldn't have taken" her son Matthew.