Man stopped at Heathrow for Transformers t-shirt

Cartoon robot with gun deemed "offensive"

2 June 2008 13:45 GMT / By Katie Scott

Uk tabloid, the Daily Mail, reports that an unsuspecting airline passenger got on the wrong side of the security at Heathrow's notorious Terminal 5 because of his Transformers t-shirt.

Brad Jayakody, who is 30-years-old and from London, was stopped as he went through security to board a flight to Dusseldorf in Germany.

The IT consultant said that the security guard pulled him to one side and first was jokey as he pointed to Jayakody's t-shirt, which shows a cartoon of the Transformers character Megatron.

However, the guard then explained that because the character on the French Connection tee is holding a gun, Jayakody would not be allowed to fly until he removed it.

Jayakody told the newspaper: "It's a 40ft tall cartoon robot with a gun as an arm. There is no way this shirt is offensive in any way, and what I'm going to use the shirt to pretend I have a gun?"

However, he swapped his t-shirt and was let onto his flight.

A spokesman for Heathrow operator BAA said: 'If a T-shirt had a rude word or a bomb on it, for example, a passenger may be asked to remove it".

"We are investigating what happened to see if it came under this category."

"If it's offensive, we don't want other passengers upset."

Jayakody did not make a formal complaint.

Full tags

Gadgets, GeekBooTeek, Clothing, Transformers