British tourist, 21, found dead in hotel room in Thailand as family left in dark | World | News

A British family have been left heartbroken after a “cheeky and happy” 21-year-old was found dead in a hotel room in Thailand. Joshua Kershaw had flown out to Bangkok for a week’s holiday on January 12 when he stopped replying to his mum’s phone calls. The young landscaper, from Grimsby, Lincolnshire, had told his family we was travelling onto the southern city of Pattaya after arriving in the Southeast Asian nation. But it has since emerged that he never made it out of Bangkok, with his body found by staff in the hotel room he was staying in with a bandage around his arm.

To complicate things further, the 21-year-old’s family were left in the dark about his whereabouts for a week, initially reporting him missing in Pattaya. It wasn’t until Thai Police put his case on high alert on January 20 that he was traced to Bangkok, where it was confirmed that he had been put in a morgue.

The family said Joshua’s cause of death remains unknown.

His aunt, Jade Kershaw, 31, also shared that they won’t be able to take his body home until an investigation into his death and a post-mortem has been completed.

Jade, from Wakefield, said: “He was a cheeky chap and so full of joy. He was always happy and there was never any bad moment with him.

“He leaves behind his four little sisters, who all love him so much. He just loved to travel. He would go on holiday, come back and work for a couple of months, and then head back out.”

She said he had appeared in good health on the day of his arrival in Bangkok, phoning his mum, Jenny, 39, and telling her about the journey.

“He then told her he was going to get some food, and then we hadn’t heard from him since,” Jade added.

“We thought he had made it to Pattaya, but the police told us he never left Bangkok. It was so unlike him not to reply to messages or pick up his mum’s calls, he spoke to her everyday.”

She said Joshua’s loved ones initially thought he must have lost his phone, but decided to contact the police after days of no contact – even launching a GoFundMe to cover the costs of flying out to Thailand and searching for him themselves.

Officers knocked on Jenny’s door on January 20 and told her the bad news, leaving her “devastated”, the 21-year-old’s aunt said.

She added that the money from the GoFundMe will now go towards bringing Joshua’s body back to the UK and covering his funeral costs.