17 year old who refused to go home

Think I would have taken all his electronic toys (i-phone, kindle- whatever) and threatened to drop them one at a time in the swimming pool if he didn't get up. Whatever will life be like at home now?

The parents must have been confident that the boy would find the rep whom they had probably briefed already - on the airport bus - about the situation. Reps handle awkward customers - and their children - all the time.

I want to know what was so wrong with his home life that he didn't want to return to it.

Some repoorts mention mental health issues.

I wondered about a rep. I remember sitting on a bus waiting for a couple who had forgotten/overslept anyway they weren't at the meeting point and the rep went off to find them and bang on their door. Wondered if this family were travelling independently-if not didn't the holiday company have an obligation to make sure he was looked after? After all 17 year olds go on holiday by themselves don't they?

This 'child' is old enough in UK law to marry and have his own children, therefore surely old enough to take responsibility for his actions, he is a young man not a child, he would not even be classed as an unaccompanied minor on the major airlines.
DS1 and 2 regularily travelled with DD 7 years younger than them, they were classed as responsible adults.
If the young man had committed a crime he would be old enough to be tried in an adult court, somewhere a line has to be drawn, the government decides how you bring up your children or you do.
Two DDs of friends have just returned from a trip to Mongolia to vist family friends, they are 15 and 17 and travelled quite happily by themselves.
When DD visited friends in Morroco at 15 Morrocan airlines classed her as an adult.

I put DC on the plane at Heathrow, and sent them off to Germany, when they were 16 and 14. DD had travelled at 13 from Germany via Schipol. How mature your DC are depends on the way you bring them up. I raised my children to be independent and allowed then to travel to school, in the next city, from 11 years old.

Mental health issues do put a different slant on things jingl. I suppose we just have to accept that we don't, and can't know the whole story so we can't really comment on what happened. I'm still not sure that criminalising the parents will help anyone, or do anything to heal family tensions.