Sam Rushton, from Tameside, Greater Manchester, was detained in Morocco while on holiday
18:17, 26 Mar 2026
Sam Rushton(Image: Submitted)
A young man from Tameside was arrested and held for hours after trying to help hungry street kids whilst on holiday.
Sam Rushton, 20, from Ashton, says he was detained after taking pictures and videos of himself handing out essentials to poverty-stricken youngsters in Morocco. He also had his phone and passport confiscated for days and now has a legal case hanging over him.
Sam, who is the full-time carer for his mum, flew out from Manchester Airport with brother Jack, 23, on Thursday March 6, for a six-day holiday in the popular tourist hotspot of Marrakech.
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However, the trip turned into a nightmare when he tried act as a Good Samaritan. Sam said he was shocked by the levels of poverty and the number of kids begging on the street.
After a teenager translated for him on a phone call as he tried to retrieve a power bank he had left in a taxi, he offered to buy him something in return, with the boy asking for olive oil and powdered milk.
Sam’s holiday to Marrakesh turned into a nightmare(Image: Submitted)
“It just shocked me,” he said. “That a kid had the chance to get whatever he wanted and he chose that. It was obviously going to the family as they were too expensive for them.”
Later that day, he used his own money to hand out essential items for other groups of kids. The goods were taken so quickly that he posted a video on his Instagram account asking his friends if they wanted to donate some money for more items he could hand out.
“I’m not an influencer or anything,” he said. “I’ve only got about 1,000 followers. There was nothing in it for me. I just thought ‘if I can help a little bit why not?’ People wired me money, I think I raised about £200. I exchanged it into dirhams and bought loads of bread, milk and nappies and stuff to take to the market to hand out.”
Sam was arrested by police
Sam said local kids helped him carry the bags and he took some pictures and videos to ‘prove to my friends I was using the money to help people.’
He said after around an hour handing out supplies, he was alerted to the presence of plain clothes police officers who were ‘staring’ at him and the children following him. “They didn’t seem to like the fact the kids were hanging around tourists,” he said.
Sam said he was shocked by the levels of poverty and begging in the city(Image: Submitted)
In a bid to reassure them, he said he walked over, showed them a couple of pictures on his phone of them carrying the goods, and told them ‘they’re helping me.’
“They looked at my phone and said ‘show us your ID,” he said. “They snatched it out of my hand and said ‘you come with us.'” Sam says he was taken to the first of three police stations, where he was held over the course of the next eight hours.
He says as he was walking to the first police station he tried to record a video explaining what was happening to his brother, but his phone was snatched and confiscated by officers.
“I didn’t know what was going on,” he said. “I was sat in a room and they were shouting at me saying I was trying to make their country look bad. I was there for about an hour then they said they had to take me to another police station.”
He said he was there for around two or three hours before moved again, to another station several miles outside the centre of the city.
“It was dark, there was no one there,” he said. “There were cats running around everywhere. I was thinking ‘I need to be ready for whatever here.’ It might be being dramatic, but you never know what is going to happen.
Sam said he filmed himself handing out goods to prove to his friends he had put their donations to good use(Image: Submitted)
“They kept telling me I could go soon but then they would make me wait longer. I didn’t have my phone so I had no way of contacting my brother or the rest of my family.”
Sam said the officers were ‘laughing at him.’ “I felt like they were taking the p*** out of me,” he said. He said he was eventually released at around 5am the following morning, however the police kept hold of his phone and officers escorted him back to his hotel, and seized his passport.
He spent days trying to retrieve them. His girlfriend Issy, 21, flew out to help him and family members sent him money so he could extend his hotel stay.
Three days after his release, he said a translator arrived at the police station where he was again trying to get his items back and was told ‘you have got court in the morning’ after being charged with ‘taking pictures without consent.’
“Imagine someone telling you, in a foreign country, you are in court the following day.” He spent the following day at a courthouse where he says he had to stand in a room and address a woman sitting behind a desk, surrounded by police officers.
‘I was so stressed out the whole time’
He said his passport was returned however he was told he had to reappear in court the following week, and was later advised by police he could not leave the country if he had a court hearing pending.
After making contact with the British Consulate, he was sent a list of English speaking lawyers who could assist and represent him. His worried mum, Rachel Rushton, 49, resorted to setting up a GoFundMe page to help pay for his legal costs.
He said his lawyer told him he had been charged with ‘capturing, recording or distributing statements or information of a private or confidential nature without the consent of the person concerned’ and ‘deliberately publishing, distributing, transmitting by any means information of a confidential nature relating to a person without their consent’, which are offences in Moroccan law.
Punishments can range from one to three years in prison and a fine of between 2,000 and 20,000 dirhams (roughly £160 to £1,600), he was told.
After getting his phone back, and being informed by his lawyer that he was able to travel, he flew home on Saturday March, 14. “The whole time I was thinking they were going to grip me at the airport,” he said.
“When I landed back it was just relief because they can’t do anything else to me,” he continued. “I’m not planning on ever going there again. The whole thing was just a mess and so unfair. Luckily I had the help I did or else I could have been out on the street and in real trouble.
“I was so stressed out the whole time. Not having a clue what was going on. Telling me to go here, telling me to go there. Giving me so much misinformation. The whole thing was just surreal. Crazy. I just wanted to help the kids.”
In total, Sam said he believes his ordeal has left him around £1,000 out of pocket. His court appearance was pushed back to April 27, where his lawyer is set to represent him.
A spokesperson for the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) said: “We supported the family of a British man who was detained in Morocco and is now back in the UK.”