My family was held like criminals after a simple passport issue — it was traumatic and we missed our vacation

They went from traveling abroad to locked up abroad in a flash.

A UK mom claims her family were detained for 24 hours “like criminals” and forced to miss out on their $8,000 vacation after arriving in Turkey with an expired passport.

“It was a real honest mistake. We didn’t deserve that treatment,” Amber Maherloughnan, 28, told Kennedy News Agency of the “traumatic” ordeal. “I will never do that again in my lifetime.”

The mother-of-one had reportedly flown with fiancé Will Land-smith, 31, and six-year-old son Reuben from London to Antalya, Turkey on August 5 for a week-long getaway in the idyllic seaside locale.

Things initially appeared to be going swimmingly as the family went through two passport-checking stations and boarded the plane without incident.

It wasn’t until they arrived in the Middle Eastern country that their trip took a turn for the worse.

“We came into Turkish airlines to the passport control,” Maherloughnan, who works as a photographer, recalled. “My son’s passport was the last passport at the bottom. The officer went through our passports and said that it was all fine.”

She added, “He saw my son’s and just started shouting and saying ‘the police are being called. Your passports expired and you won’t be allowed into the country.’”

Authorities subsequently revealed that Reuben’s passport had expired on April 16, 2024 — nearly four months before their trip.

“I had no idea the whole time it was out of date,” the boy’s distraught mom recalled.

Brit said she was absolutely “terrified” because she “didn’t know what was going to happen.” “I said ‘I’m so sorry, I don’t know what to do,’” recounted Maherloughnan, whose dream trip soon devolved into a nightmare.

She said her family were held by police for 24 hours, during which they were treated like “criminals.”

“They took me into an office with four officers and said ‘you’re not allowed into the country, there’s nothing you can do,’” the petrified parent said. “They tried to get me to sign this paperwork and snatched the passports out of my hands, they wouldn’t give them to me.”

They were then tossed into a room for 13 hours with one bottle of water, a bed with no sheets, and very little food.

“They put a rotten tomato and an egg in a box and kicked it across to me,” said Maherloughnan. “The floor was disgusting, the toilet was disgusting.”

She added, “I curled up in the corner where the radiator was. Some of the guards terrified me.”

When the gal asked for her luggage, the guards refused, only giving them Reuben’s bag because it was small. They reportedly rifled through the tyke’s stuff and threw his clothes around the room despite the fact that they’d already gone through security.

Following the layover from hell, her fiancé and son left the airport and tried to secure a temporary travel document for Reuben in a last-ditch attempt to salvage the trip.

Despite their best efforts, the mother and son were forced to fly home the following day because there was no guarantee that the paperwork would allow them entry into the country.

Maherloughnan said the police officers grabbed her and escorted her to the return flight sans letting her grab any food. She that the flight attendants wouldn’t even return her passport while aboard, adding that the was “spoken to rudely.”

“I would never fly with that airline again,” declared Maherloughnan. She claimed that the Odyssey was a huge financial blow as she spent over $7,800 on a trip that never happened, plus the out-of-pocket cost for a separate flight home.

While the bedraggled Brit acknowledged that she made a “silly mistake,” she said that the way she was “treated with a child wasn’t fair.” “I’m going there as a family to spend money on things to support their country and I’m treated in such a bad way,” the parent declared.

Maherloughnan also blamed security on the British side, claiming that it was a massive “oversight” that they let her through with an expired travel doc. Officials at London Gatwick airport — where they departed from — stated that airline’s duty to vet passports and board passengers onto flights and that they don’t have any involvement.

She also warned parents not make the same mistake she did. The photog uploaded a picture of Reuben staring sadly out of the plane window, with the caption, “let this be a lesson to all parents check your kids’ passports.”

The UK Government website states that Turkey-bound travelers must have a passport that’s valid “for at least 150 days from the date” they arrive.

Meanwhile, the Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs writes on their site that visitors must have a travel document/passport valid for at least six months” from their date of arrival.