[RichHI1]

Martyn –
If the Security operative felt that they have been abused then I think the answer is yes (given that one might dispute that abuse had occurred).
I do not know whether asking that question would be reasonable. Cetainly pullovers and jackets have to be removed for security. For UKBA purposes faces have to be shown but that can be done by persons of the same sex in a private room. It may be that people wearing headcoverings for moral or religious reasons are similarly inspected by security however if not one could legitimately question the security perspective.
If the question was addressed to an operative or a manager then I suspect the court would look to the reasonableness of the request.
Thus if Mr Jones was seen to just trying to contrast Muslim behaviour then this would not be reasonable however say Mr Jones had cut himself badly shaving and for reasons of decorum arrived at Security with a headscarf covering all or part of his face accordingly then he would have reasonable grounds to ask the question.
I think the court would inquire as to whether Mr Jones wore his scarf over his face normally or only going through security.
Where employees can be seen to be acting resonably within their duties then claims for assault or other offences are unlikely to succeed due to public policy considerations. I would suggest that the law is after all designed to keep order and guarantee certainty.

DoS security forces do examine passports or IDs and travel documents thereforeI woudl presume that they have every right to take it. I do not believe tha they would not have the right appropriate it, which would involve the UKBA or the police.

All the above is personal opinion and in no way to be seen as legal advice or counsel within any jurisdiction.

[Vertrek]

This is what I call being bias. The security guard obviously took the comment personally instead of professionally and it is not professional especially she is on the front line of the life of millions of passengers that gone through Gatwick each year.

I would question the validity of her job and if whether she should be allowed to keep her job, not only her but also the BAA system as a whole, especially UK is one of the hottest target. Also, I personally think for security reasons all people should show their face for security check before boarding regardless of race, religious and nationality.

Having said that, could this whole thing be political? The UK is now heavily invested by the Middle Easterners, could it be a reason why they are so uptight about it? In particular, comments concerning the middle easterners and the muslim.

Sorry if I am being insensitive with my chosen words because I am not a native English speaker.

[RichHI1]

Vertrek, Gatwick is not owned by BAA any more but I see your argument.

I do not believe that ownership by any particular groups has any substantial effect. The UK (either through its own intiatives or to comply with EU directives) has sought to legislate to reduce or eliminate racial discrimination (and gender).

Being an island nation, there has historically been a distrust of foreigners in general and people who by reason of appearance or custom are easily identified as “not British”.

Whilst this bias has reduced over the years with higher levels of immigration and international travel, the Government has chosen to implement legislation to accelerate progress.

There are three questions that I personally think this case raises:

Given that it is deemed necessary to legislate, is the legislation correctly drafted?

Is the legislation enforced in a proportionate and effective manner?

Is there a test of reasonableness as to what constitutes abuse or discrimination? This last point is key as there is no doubt that the current balance would favour a lesser rather than a greater standard in order to be seen as implementing the legislation.

I feel posters should be aware that by suggesting that the secuirty operative shoudl be dismissed for feeling her faithor culture had been insulted then thsat too could be seen as abuse.

[DisgustedofSwieqi]

Rich, if you think about it, one does not show a passport when entering UK security, they look at the boarding pass only.

Also, the security screeners are not part of a government agency, they work for a private company.

I find it difficult to believe that they have the power to take and hold someone’s passport.

But then again, like you, I am no lawyer.

What I do know is that I had a dust up at a London airport a while ago, when the screeners wanted to confiscate an item that complied with their published list of items that could be carried.

They would not have it and so I decided I would leave the secure area and mail it to myself. They did not want to let me do this, so I started to dial ‘999’ and informed them that I would report them to the police for kidnapping. It took all of 1 second for the guy to cr*p himself and become reasonable.

[RichHI1]

DoS you are rightt hat the UK do not normally check ID’s but I believe they could be entitled to under the legislation.

In the UK a number of government functions such runnign rpisons, running police stations, airport security are outsourced for financial considerations. I believe the rights are ascribed to the role they are fulfilling not whether they employees of the Government or merely its agents.

I have also had reasoned discussions when legitimate items were attempted to be taken away. I have found a reasoned conversation with the duty manager normally resolves matters which normally come to fruition due to poor staff training. I think you would find little joy from the police if you asked them to intervene. i think you will find the legislation they operate under is nowhere near as restrictive as the guidelines they publish for travellers.

All this said, I think ti important to say that I travel very frequently and only have issues with security in UK airports in less then 1% of occassions (I can count on one hand). Admittedly 99% of my flying is T3 LHR not Gatwick.

My complaints would be 3
1) Why are machines an dlanes in Fast Track switched off when there are long queues? When I asked Duty Managers I was told repeatedly the airlines won’t pay for more staff.
2) Why do Security operatives stand arund chatting about who went out with whom at the weekend and whereabouts in Honslow they are meeting up tonight, when there are many passengeres waiting to get through
3) Why do we hav to stop and wait because the male/female pat down operative cannot do the pat down because they are showing the trainee on the scanner what the object they are looking couldbe?

They are far from perfect, under trained and under resourced but I think it unfair to level nothing but criticism at them for they perform a valuable service and I doubt they get much thanks or salary fro doing it.

[DisgustedofSwieqi]

“I have also had reasoned discussions when legitimate items were attempted to be taken away. I have found a reasoned conversation with the duty manager normally resolves matters which normally come to fruition due to poor staff training. “

You can only have a reasoned conversation, if the other person is reasonable. BTW, that person was the duty manager.

I think the fact that the person did a volte face when confronted is informing about that person. If he had been within his powers, he would have stood his ground.

“In the UK a number of government functions such runnign rpisons, running police stations, airport security are outsourced for financial considerations. I believe the rights are ascribed to the role they are fulfilling not whether they employees of the Government or merely its agents.”

I am sure you are right, but airport security is not an outsourced government department.

DFT sets the rules (which are driven by the EC), but do not directly or indirectly run the show.

We need security at airports and most of the screeners are okay, but the principle of “Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?” applies here in my opinion.

The other question to ask is, whilst the airport security person was carrying out the ‘investigation’ and the other was being offended, what impact did this have on their day job of keeping the pax safe? If they felt a offence was committed, then surely they can report that to the police, like any other citizen?

[RichHI1]

Ah… the noble lie…

I feel it a fair inference from the events that their investigations revelead that no offence was committed. They would doubtless claim they had investigated it as seriously as the allegation warranted.

As I said the agencies in question probably need to address proportionality in their hadnling of these issues.

If Mr Jones has genuine concerns not born out of racial or any other prejudice more a concern for the security of air travel, then it would be perfectly fair and proper for him to ask the relevant Government Department via his MP what the rules are for security processing of inviduals who wish to cover their faces during the process from the perspective of concern there may be deficiencies in the security process. I suspect that similar procedures to UKBA are employed but that is a guess.

To me the key question is whether an offense, discrimination or abuse was relevant to the nationality, race, beliefs or gender of the security agent. One is perfectly entitled to make comments such as “this is very slow isn’t it?” without being accused with discrimination. However as previuosly posteed such behaviour is not rcommended and may result in a swift introduction to Mr and Mrs Marigold (a well know brand of rubber gloves for those unfamilair with the UK).

[PeterPR]

I think RichH11 has the best of it here.

It’s the manager I sympathise with: a possibly insensitive remark, a possibly oversensitive reaction, and the manager is in an administratively dangerous position.

[DisgustedofSwieqi]

“Ah… the noble lie…”

Always prefered Protagoras to Plato, myself.

[Bucksnet]

I have only just discovered this thread, otherwise I would have commented earlier; the thread title did not help.

Disgusted, the comment is not racial or religious but cultural. You are concerned that free speech is being curtailed, well get used to it as it’s only going to get worse.

Martyn, ‘it seems to be far better if you are non white, non Christian’ yes that is correct. British people are starting to feel unwelcome in their own country and that foreigners get priority, but keep voting in governments that are committed to this situation.

Bullfrog, the civil servants and politicians you feel nothing but shame about are CP assets who are acting on DVD orders.

From reading the article it appears that the guy asked a question, not made a statement. The person he spoke to was not offended and indeed said ‘I know what you mean.’ It was another security guard who tried to get him to apologise to the muslim guard, but the guy was not even talking to them.

I would not of let an employee of a private company take my passport, and I would not have gone through back through security to discuss the matter. I would have had a brief discussion and then carried on with my business. If they want to call the police, which they did not appear to want to in this case, then let them.

[magnus77]

‘However, all passengers must show their faces to UK Borders officials when they pass through passport control. Muslim women who wear hijabs can request that their identity is checked by a female immigration officer and they can also ask that they be taken to a private room before they remove their head wear. ‘-

quoted from the article – we should be asking why the security staff who are employed primarily to follow strict rules regardless of religion, race etc why they didnt check her and just allow her to go through unchecked as it stated she was allowed through without checking. I feel the chap in question has a right to question that albeit with a strange chose of words

[DisgustedofSwieqi]

Bucksnet

I am not sure that comment is even cultural – it could equally apply to someone wearing a surgical mask, I had a lady sitting next to me for 6 hours last week, doing exactly this and she was informed on arrival at MLA to remove it, by the immigration officer, so he could check her against the passport photo.

One would have to be very sure that Mr Jones’s comments were made in the context of a specific culture and not as a general comment. From what we read here, I doubt that would withstand a QCs assault 😉

I could not agree more with your last sentence and that is what I would have done, too.

[DisgustedofSwieqi]

Magnus

I’m not sure that there is a requirement for the security folks to see someone’s face, when they pass through.

Even if there is, I bet that there is an agreement for people of certain groups, e.g. Sikhs can ride motorbikes without crash helmets and I believe also do not have to remove turbans passing through the arch, also they have an arrangement for ceremonial daggers.

None of this I have a problem with, all it needed was a polite, ‘actually sir, the regulations say she is permitted to pass through wearing the veil’ and then adding a rider with ‘these regualtions say you may or may not cover your face with your scarf’ (delete as appropriate.)

What actually happened sounds to me more like a kangaroo court.

[RichHI1]

In my personal view I think PeterPR hit the nail on the head. The original question was perhaps not phrased as as sensitively as it could have been, the reaction was perhaps unreasonably oversensitive and then everybody else was anxious to cover their backs being caught in the middle.

It is unfortunate that events such as this bring into disrepute the noble aim of removing prejudice and discrimination based on faith, customs or origin.

As often is the case, I do not see the law as appropriate in either side of this case and bellicose comments about taking legal action for assault or false imprisonment do not help.

I would hope that all the parties at the airport would have demonstrated more common sense in defusing this situation. Common sense unfortunately seems to be lacking when officials become involved as everyone wants to cover their backs.

[magnus77]

Disgusted,

Apparently its a Department of Transport regulation, agreed the security staff and the BA manager handled it appallingly. If they was sufficient evidence of racism why werent the police called straight away and when the chap requested them why where the police unwiling to arrest the man.
I can’t see how they can retain his passport and boarding card they have no authority to do that. Agreed once the stakes where raised the staff will want to cover there backs and it becomes increasingly difficult for the BA manager to go against people they will work with indirectly or directly. maybe they can all learn from the experience however not publicity that Gatwick would be proud of

[Author]

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