A selfie won him a holiday, was he right to have it taken away?

I came across David Bellis’s story yesterday on social media and I must say I was shocked at the response it received! I’d love to hear your opinions on this rather unusual debate.

David Bellis and his three-year-old son stumbled across a grinning horse when they were walking to his primary school one morning and obviously the first thing they did was take a selfie!

When David later spotted The Thomson Holiday ‘Made Me Smile’ competition to win a dream family holiday worth £2,000 … of course he entered the selfie. 

The selfie stole the show and David was announced as the winner of what would have been his first family holiday. The father of one was soon being banished as shameful and selfish!

The horse’s owner Nicola Mitchell told him he did not have her consent to photograph the horse and not only that but she was contacting Thomson Holidays to complain!

Nicola told ITV News: ‘I was really annoyed to hear he had won a £2,000 holiday and had used a picture of our horse without our permission. He should have asked for our consent.It’s not like it’s just £100. £2,000 is a lot of money and would go quite a long way for a family.

I didn’t give him permission to use our horse in a competition. I will be phoning Thomson Holidays to tell them what has gone on but I don’t know what they will do. But I will tell them I’m not happy.

“There should be some token of gesture as it is our horse that has really won them the holiday.

“I didn’t even know that this competition was on. If I had known about it we would have entered it ourselves and could have won as Betty is always sticking out her tongue.’

David has said that he doesn’t understand why Nicola is so annoyed as the photo was taken on a public path that everyone uses to get to the local school and everyone sees the horses there.

There had been lots ofspeculation that David had had the prize taken away from him yesterday.

Thomson holidays have since announced that David and his family will get to keep their family holiday.

The holiday company tweeted: ‘Our Blue Monday competition was meant to make people smile on what’s been deemed the most depressing day of the year. We can confirm that despite questions over foal play, Mr Bellis and his family will still be receiving their holiday. And we’re sure they will hoof a good time.’

So  who’s side are you on? Can you relate to Nicola waning in on the prize?

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