Two British teen girls who thought it would be cool to dress up for Halloween as burning Twin Towers have become the subject international scorn and scrutiny.
Amber Langford and Annie Collinge, two 19-year-old students at the University of Chester, donned costumes labeled "North Tower" and "South Tower" along with head pieces that resembled smoke clouds. To add insult to injury, the teens won a "best dressed" award and 150 pounds in a costume contest at Rosie's nightclub in Chester. Subsequently, The Sun plastered their picture on their frong page underneathe the headline "Towering Stupidity."
The teens have since released an apology stating: "We never meant to be offensive, but we apologize if any offense was caused. The idea was to depict a modern-day horror that happened in our lifetime and was not intended as a joke."
A spokeswoman for the Stonegate Pub Company, which runs the Rosies club also released a statement saying, "Following the club night Halloween promotion that took place at Rosies, Chester, we are extremely concerned that an award of shopping vouchers was made to two young women who were dressed in a distasteful and offensive manner," reports the Huffington Post.
"There was a serious error of judgment made on the evening by a contracted DJ to award such a prize and we apologise to anybody who may have been upset or offended by this. A full investigation by the company is taking place," the statement continued.
Ironically, one of the British teen's fathers is a pilot who was flying into New York City on 9/11. Martin Langford told the Telegraph, "I didn't know anything about it, but I'm not happy about it. She knows I'm a pilot and that's not cool at all. We will be having a little chat, I think."