Swedish girls in Elvis handcuff 'ordeal'

Three 14-year-old girls went to Brighton to learn English but they didn’t reckon with their host family including a crazed, handcuff-wielding Elvis fan.

Aftonbladet reports that STS Language Schools arranged for the girls to stay with a family in the south of England.

The host dad was a dedicated Elvis Presley fan, so much so that he had adopted his hero’s name.

As the days passed Elvis’s behaviour allegedly grew ever more bizarre. And after a few days the dream of an idyllic language trip turned sour when the host parents began drinking heavily.

“They drank all the time. And they forced us to drink too. They spiked our fizzy drinks and wouldn’t take no for an answer when we didn’t want to drink them,” the girls told Aftonbladet.

On one occasion Nicolina Axelsson found herself unable to leave the kitchen table.

“He handcuffed me,” said Axelsson.

“First he put both of them on me. Then he unlocked one of them and put it on himself. He wouldn’t let me go for a few minutes. I was terrified,” she said.

Nicolina also claims that Elvis kissed her on the cheek.

The Swedish head of STS Language Schools, Olle Magnusson, thinks the girls have blown the incident out of proportion.

“The host dad denies drinking or trying to kiss anybody. And as for the handcuffs, they are the tools of his trade as he is a security guard.

“I assume there was an element of humour in the episode,” Magnusson told Aftonbladet.

Linn Ekeroth revealed that music was not Elvis’s only passion. He tried to force her to kiss the badge on his England jersey, she claimed.

One night he is said to have woken the girls up and forced them to dance.

The girls asked to be moved away from Elvis and his wife. And eventually they were allocated a new family, but they are unhappy with the response they got from STS.

“They didn’t take us seriously. When we raised the alarm the first time we were just told that we wouldn’t be at home with the family all that much.

“Then it took two days before they came and collected us,” said the girls.

The girls’ parents have asked STS for 8,000 kronor in compensation.

But Olle Magnusson has offered 3,000 kronor. He claims that the girls completed a survey five days into their trip in which they said they were satisfied.

“We have done as much as we could,” said Magnusson.

Paul O'Mahony, The Local, Sweden, 24 Nov 2006

 

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