A former Royal Marine was told to cover-up a tattoo of his regimental badge by security staff at Heathrow Airport, because it was 'offensive' to other passengers.Ahh, the taking of offence on behalf of others. Just what a ‘security guard’ should be doing, right?
Paul Fairclough, a former medic with the 539 Assault Squadron, was furious after he was challenged over the famous Marine dagger insignia as he arrived for a transfer flight.So, the tattoo was only on display because a woman too dim to get a job serving fries in McDonalds told him to uncover it in the first place?
The 29-year-old, who served in Kosovo and Iraq, had just arrived at Terminal 5 from Toronto and was transferring for a Manchester flight when he was stopped by a female security operator as he passed through a metal detector.
After he put his bag on to an x-ray machine he was told to take his jacket off - revealing the 12-inch tattoo on his right arm.
The female operator spotted the tattoo and said: 'That tattoo is offensive. You will have to cover it up.'Note the expectation that her orders, no matter how unconnected with security – her real job – will be obeyed without question.
Sadly for her, she picked the wrong man to challenge:
The father-of-one, who joined the Army at 19 and now works as a safety officer on oil rigs, refused to cover the design and walked past the guard.People are wondering who it is that still votes Labour.
Mr Fairclough said: 'I tried to explain that she was mistaken and that it was the insignia of my old regiment, the Royal Marines.
'She said she knew exactly what it was but that it made no difference. They had a policy that tattoos showing offensive weapons of any kind must not be on show.
Well, here we have an example. A chippy, obnoxious little madam, bored with a dead-end job and therefore desperate to find other ways to pass the time, unaccustomed to ever being disobeyed, and fully aware of her impotence when the inevitable happens:
'I was half annoyed and told her that there was no way I was covering it up and I walked on as she glared at me.Heh..!
'I half expected to feel a tap on my shoulder but I just walked through the arch and went on my way.'
And he wasn’t content to leave it at that either:
Mr Fairclough, who lives with wife Nicky and 1-year-old son Matthew in Tranmere, Wirral, then attempted to make a complaint after passing through security.Oh, boy. I bet that supervisor couldn’t have sweated any more if Mr Fairclough had confronted him with a real dagger…!
'I demanded to see a supervisor to ask for an explanation.
'He said they had a policy that offensive tattoos connected with gangs and weapons must be covered-up in the airport.
'But he said there was no ban on military insignia tattoos and tried to explain it away by saying that the operator concerned must have made a mistake.
'When I said that she had insisted that she knew exactly that it was a Royal Marines' badge he tried to say she must not have been trained properly.
Even the management weren’t going to carry the can for this:
A spokesman for British Airports Authority at Heathrow said: 'This should not have happened. We have no policy against tattoos.That’s what I like to see – total and utter capitulation in the teeth of a refusal to be bullied.
'We do sometimes ask passengers to cover-up things like slogans that would be offensive to other travellers, but that is clearly not case on this occasion.
'BAA would like to offer our sincere apologies to the passenger concerned.'
I wonder if Mr Fairclough gives lessons? There just might be a call for his services in Downing Street…
16 comments:
"People are wondering who it is that still votes Labour."
Sadly, the Conservatives haven't figured it out either.
These jobsworths spend all day trying to justify their existence rather than trying to protect people, but no-one has tapped into the public anger about this.
'That tattoo is offensive. You will have to cover it up.'
*thinks*
offensive weapon + tattoo = offensive tattoo
Remember Tomorrow's World telling us that in the 21st-century, routine jobs would be done by mindless robots...?
The father-of-one, who joined the Army at 19
So he was NOT a Royal Marine then.
Because they are Navy, not army.
Damn scum "journalist" bastards.
NO bloody idea they havn't.
"'She said she knew exactly what it was but that it made no difference. They had a policy that tattoos showing offensive weapons of any kind must not be on show."
Kind of makes you want to go out and have a tattoo of an AK47 on your face.
an airline employee told me he had considered denying boarding for a man, going on holiday with his family, who was covered in right-wing tattoos including swastikas and a portrait of a well-known dictator. was he causing a problem at the gate? no. had anyone complained? no. then why? "because i don't like fascists" he replied. "so stopping someone going on holiday because of their political viewpoint isn't fascism? what about all the che guevara t-shirts? where do you draw the line?" was my reply. he was gracious enough to admit that i was right.
...and when she sees a real head case rather than a patriot with a tattoo she'll pretend she's seen nothing let him through.
Bullying isnt only confined to Downing Street.
Who will protect us from our protectors?
I entirely agree with the sentiments expressed here, although it should be said that the title of this post should be "Johnny Cash was right".
I fly to my holidays once or twice a year. How come I have never heard of this 'policy'?
Was she a W.O.N.A? - Only asking.
"she must not have been trained properly"
Who supervised the training?
"...no-one has tapped into the public anger about this."
No, and as you point out, it would be a temptingly open goal for iDave, wouldn't it?
Unless of course it suits him to ramp up fear of terrorism...?
"Remember Tomorrow's World telling us that in the 21st-century, routine jobs would be done by mindless robots...?"
They were, it seems, only wrong about where they'd be made.
Not in factories. In state schools!
"NO bloody idea they havn't."
Maybe he transferred?
"he was gracious enough to admit that i was right."
But a bit worrying that he saw nothing wrong in admitting to it, even to a friend!
"Bullying isnt only confined to Downing Street."
No, indeed it's not.
"..although it should be said that the title of this post should be "Johnny Cash was right"."
Oh, yes! I'll save it for next time. I think we all know there will be a next time...
"Was she a W.O.N.A?"
I think, in these circumstances, the company should identify the person concerned. Let's see how often they'd try to throw their weight around without cause then.
"Who supervised the training?"
Probably not the manager - in any big company, that's outsourced. And they'll receive a whole host of metrics to 'prove' its effectiveness.
Means nothing, of course!
"...no-one has tapped into the public anger about this."
What public anger?
And THAT is the problem. The public are so overloaded with this kind of crap, that they noe longer care about something against which their "anger" obviously has no effect.
MacHeath said: Remember Tomorrow's World telling us that in the 21st-century, routine jobs would be done by mindless robots...?
Huxley. Brave New World. Delta and Eplison castes were deliberately engineered from birth to be menial labour too compliant and dumb to question their orders. I thought it was a satire of eugenics, not a manifesto.
JuliaM said...
"NO bloody idea they havn't."
Maybe he transferred?
You can NOT transfer between arms.
You can leave one and rejoin in another, but the chances are you would never get through the interview stage as you would be marked down as "disloyal to the troop", a "Dissatisfied soldier" and "an unreliable entity". NON of which would exactly ENDEAR you to a Royal Marin recruiter.
And no, he can NOT be transfered due to an order. It takes an act of Parliament to transfer Marines/troops/Sailors/airmen between arms.
It is merely the scumbag, imbicilic bastards in the Mail, who could not get a fact correct if someone stood and shouted it in their bloody ear.
I'd forgotten all about that song. I wanted to listen to it on the way home but realised it wasn't on my iPod.
I have now added it in honour of this post.
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