Holly Bowles: Father of teen who died in Laos poisonings tells BBC she was full of life

Holly and Bianca had planned their trip to celebrate their graduation from school.

Since they’d been away, Shaun had spoken to his daughter every few days, while Holly’s mother, Sam, had spoken to her “every second”.

“They were just having an absolute blast,” he said.

The two 19-year-olds were taken to hospital after they failed to check out of the Nana Backpacker hostel, where they were staying, and were found unresponsive.

Shaun and his family received news that Holly and Bianca were unwell through a friend of the girls. The two mothers flew out to Thailand that night.

“When you’re getting second hand information… it was really hard to process exactly what sort of condition that they were in,” said Shaun.

He and Bianca’s father, Mark, flew out the next day, by which point the girls were in a hospital in Udon Thani, over the border from Laos in Thailand.

Bianca died on 21 November, and Holly a day later.

“She was just full of life. She was confident, she was loving, she was just a true friend of people. She was everything you want your daughter to be,” said Shaun.

Now, Shaun says, his focus is on raising awareness of methanol poisoning to other young people backpacking through South East Asia.

“We absolutely want whoever is responsible for this brought to account and brought to justice, and we’re going to do everything that we can to make sure that is the case,” he says.

The other four victims have been named as Simone White, a 28-year-old lawyer from the UK; James Louis Hutson, a 57-year-old American; and Danish citizens Anne-Sofie Orkild Coyman, 20, and Freja Vennervald Sorensen, 21.

Eight people have been arrested in connection with the case.