British woman in critical condition after fall from sixth-floor hotel balcony in Benidorm

Apr 09, 2023

A British woman is in a critical condition in hospital after falling from a sixth-floor hotel balcony in Benidorm.

Her 40-year-old British husband, who was arrested in the early hours of Saturday morning on suspicion of attempted homicide by Spanish police, has been released from custody by a judge.

The tourists were staying at the four-star Rio Park, part of the Medplaya hotel chain. The alarm was raised just after midnight.

The woman, 36, remains in hospital in the nearby Villajoyosa and her condition was described as “critical” when she was first taken for treatment.

Sources close to the investigation were not able to say on Sunday whether the incident at the hotel was now being treated as an accident or attempted suicide or could be crime-related.

The same sources said the unnamed British man had been released after appearing before a judge in a closed court hearing in Benidorm.

He was freed without any protective measures such as the obligation to sign on at court or a ban on leaving the country, suggesting he was not being treated as a suspect.

Court workers could not be reached to provide an official statement.

A spokesman for Spain’s National Police had earlier said after the incident: “Officers have arrested a British man on suspicion of attempted homicide after his wife, who is also British, plunged from the sixth-floor balcony of their hotel in Benidorm.

“The arrest is a preventative measure and it will be up to a judge to decide what happens next after the man appears before him in the next day or so.

“The couple were sharing the same room and we are talking about a foreigner who has no ties to Spain so we are under an obligation to make the arrest as we try to determine what happened.”

Local reports said witnesses had told police the man was in their hotel room and the woman on the balcony when she went over the edge.

The hotel where the incident happened is set in a quiet area of Benidorm just a five-minute walk from the Costa Blanca resort’s famous Levante Beach.

Scots holidaymaker Kirsty Maxwell died in a hotel plunge in Benidorm in April 2017.

Five British men were cleared of any involvement in her death after a long-running probe, with a regional court rejecting an appeal by her parents in July 2020 to persuade judges it was not an accident and overturn an earlier court decision to shelve the investigation.

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