Thomas Cook chief executive Peter Fankhauser 'deeply sorry' following Corfu gas deaths

The chief executive of Thomas Cook has apologised to the family of two children who died while on holiday at one of their hotels in Corfu.

Peter Fankhauser said he is "deeply sorry" for the deaths of Christi and Bobby Shepherd, who died as a result of carbon monoxide poisoning at the Louis Corcyra Beach Hotel in 2006.

After an inquest ruled the children died unlawfully after Thomas Cook "breached its duty of care", the company donated £1.5m ($2.35m) of the compensation it received from the hotel to charity.

Fankhauser was previously criticised by the family after telling the inquest he did not feel the need to apologise as he believed "there was no wrongdoing" by Thomas Cook.

Speaking to the BBC, the chief executive has now said he is "deeply sorry" for the deaths and admitted the company has made mistakes in the subsequent nine years. He has also promised to make it up to Christi and Bobby's family without going into any specific details.

"It is clear that there are things that we as a company could have done better in the past nine years," he said. "In particular the way we conducted our relationship with the family and this is something that we are going to change."

"I'm not going to communicate in public about what we are going to do. The company since nine years in this relation did mistakes. We are sorry for that so we want not to do the same mistakes. We want to help the family to move on and that is it.

"I don't want to repeat the mistakes the company did in the past. My intention is to see how they can move forward with their lives. I'm sorry about what they have had to go through. I'm personally sorry as a father myself."