‘An airport security guard poked me in my stoma bag’
Last week, Isabel Oakeshott wrote about her ‘humiliating’ experience at airport security, where she was manhandled by a female member of staff. In her article, she highlighted how “increasingly difficult” it is to “challenge anyone wearing a uniform over poor behaviour or service”
Isabel’s experience resonated with Telegraph readers, who took to the comments section to share similar tales of airport security staff taking liberties and exhibiting bullying behaviour.
Reader Seán Reddy recalled the time he was “forced to drop his trousers to prove” he had a stoma bag.
“I’ve had Crohn’s disease for 45 years, and after five bowel resections, I got fitted with a stoma bag last year. I was at Heathrow airport when, due to the bag, I beeped when walking past the security scanner. A male security officer proceeded to pat me down and poked me in the stomach.
“It really hurt. He asked me what that was and I explained it was a stoma bag, to which he replied ‘Oh yeah? Prove it’. My wife was absolutely horrified,” Sean recalls.
“After security I wanted to complain, so I asked to speak to a supervisor. Somebody came along but they were completely disinterested.
“I was saying how it is unacceptable and you cannot treat people this way and I got told, ‘Yes we can, and if you don’t like it don’t fly’.”
Telegraph reader Mark Harper shared a very similar story. His eldest daughter, Jessie, was still adjusting to having a stoma bag when she was left “mortified and embarrassed” in front of a large number of people after being asked to show it.
“Despite showing her medical card, which is designed to be shown at airport security, the staff were just not interested in it. The whole purpose of the card is to avoid uncomfortable situations. They didn’t even take her to a cubicle”
‘I knew it was deliberate – but what could I do?’
A number of female Telegraph readers shared very similar experiences to Isabel’s. Reader Zoe Taylor shared that a security woman at Innsbruck airport in Austria “groped” her breasts after she had beeped while walking through the scanner.
“It was quite shocking, because it was a definite squeeze of my breasts… She looked at me, so I knew it was deliberate – but what could I do? It was one of those situations where you know as a woman that you’ve been harassed but no one else has seen it and no one will believe you.”
Zoe continues: “The screening system has to change.This ridiculous undressing and redressing, unpacking and repacking in public is an unnecessary time-wasting humiliation for all.
“I flew back from Sydney this summer and it was a huge revelation to put my whole bag onto the conveyor belt and just walk through the scanner without taking off any clothing or taking anything out of my bag. It made the process extremely quick and significantly less humiliating and stressful.
“It also means passengers don’t lose anything or get groped or show all the passengers the valuables in their carry on.“
Telegraph reader Audrey Murdoch also recalls a similar encounter when coming back from a holiday in Turkey: “I beeped and was taken into a curtained cubicle, where one female groped my boobs, while the other one laughed.
“It was after my first bout of breast cancer and my breast was rather deformed which added to my discomfort. I was tempted to complain about my experience but felt it was better to get away from the security area as soon as possible,” Audrey adds.
‘Extremely upsetting and totally unnecessary’
But uncomfortable experiences at the airport are not limited to women. Reader Sheree Davies shares how her dad, “a quiet respectful man, got taken to a room to be searched” at the age of 90.
“It was extremely upsetting for him and totally unnecessary. Why they decided to focus their attention on him, I will never know.”
An anonymous reader shared how her husband was “fully groped by a male airport security guard” a few years ago. She believes the “zero tolerance of aggressive or rude behaviour” is “only a stunt. If my husband gets touched up again, I expect him to react badly and he will have my full support”.
