A COUPLE have paid an emotional return visit to a Tunisian resort where they survived a deadly terrorist attack almost four years ago.

Steve and Jacqui Walls, from Malton, retraced their steps on the beach at Port El Kantaoui, just north of Sousse, where a gunman opened fire in June 2015, killing 38 people, including 30 British tourists.

They also returned to a hotel where Jacqui hid terrified in a room for more than an hour, fearing her husband was dead.

Steve, 69, said: “We always had every intention to return to Tunisia after the attack and we did finally return last month for a holiday.

“We followed the routes which my wife and I took during the attack and, as we expected, shed a few tears for the victims.”

Steve also revealed they had attended the unveiling on Monday of a monument in Cannon Hill Park, Birmingham, to victims of both the beach atrocity and another terrorist attack at a different location in Tunisia.

Steve, who has told previously how he has been diagnosed as suffering from severe post traumatic stress disorder as a result of his experiences, with repeated flashbacks, said that on the day they got evacuated after the attack, they decided they were going to come back.

“It was important for closure,” he said. “We followed the route Jacqui took that day when she went for a walk along the beach and the route she took to escape from the gunman into the grounds of a hotel.

“And then we followed the route which I took when I went running down to the beach to look for her and came across the casualties on the beach. Then we went back to the hotel, and we actually found the door which I smashed in with my shoulder to hide in a room away from the gunman. It was like we relived it all again. We also laid some roses at a plaque in the grounds of a hotel.

“A few people said to us we must be mad going back but a lot of people have said to us we have done a very brave thing in going back and hoped we would benefit from it.

“It was very, very helpful. It has done us both a great deal of good to go back there.

“Sometimes I’ve felt: was I dreaming, did it really happen? But now I’ve gone back I know it wasn’t a dream, it really happened.”

Steve said they had also felt they owed a return visit out of loyalty to the people of Tunisia, ‘because they are such a lovely people and its such a lovely country.’ He said: “The tour operators have just started operating flights out there.It was very quiet, but we spoke to the managers of three hotels who said tourism was picking up again, which is good.“We mentioned we had been there during the attack to a few people and they were very pleased.”He added that they hoped to go back again at about the time of the fourth anniversary of the attack.

Jacqui, 61, said: “We have both had PTSD and I guess that sometimes to overcome those anxieties and fears, you have to face it to get that closure.

“You have to distance yourself from it and use strategies in your life to take stock and realise how lucky we were. It’s about managing it.”