Surgeon accuses News airport of racism after scanner row
BOSSES SAY ‘ALL POLICIES AND PROCEDURES WERE FOLLOWED’
A TOP surgeon has alleged he was the victim of ‘racial triaging’ at Manchester Airport security when he was asked to queue for the body scanner while a string of white travellers were waved through an archway metal detector.
Professor Aali Sheen, 51, said: “It was racist. It was clear racial triaging.”
Manchester Airport has investigated the allegations and concluded the doctor and his family were directed to the body scanner by its official to ‘adhere to the requisite ratio of body scanner and metal detector usage’ required by government policy. A spokesman said: “All policies and procedures... were followed.”
The married Pakistani heritage consultant surgeon from Didsbury, who works at Manchester Royal Infirmary and is president of the British Hernia Society, described how he became involved in a confrontation with a security official in Terminal 1 on April 3 before a flight to Grenoble for a skiing trip for him and two of his three children.
Prof Sheen says he had been queueing for two hours before finally reaching security for his 8am flight.
He said a security official motioned him towards a queue at the body scanner even though the smaller archway metal detector was clear and available to use.
He described how he began to question the man after the official had told him ‘you need to go there,’ directing him to the queue at the body scanner.
The surgeon said: “I said ‘why?’ and he said ‘because we have a system.’ I asked ‘what system is that?’ I challenged him. I knew the reason. It was obvious. To me it was obvious.
“He said ‘just do as you are told.’ He was really rude to me and I said ‘Don’t talk to me like that.’
“I told him he needed to give me a reason. He started arguing with me. I said to him ‘don’t talk back to me – I’m the customer. I know you are a security officer but I think you are being disrespectful to me.’
“And then, when I collected my bags and looked back, I saw an obviously Muslim family and they were all going through the same scanner as me. They were being directed there by the same person.
“It was just wrong. At the same time other people, shall I say Anglo-Saxons, were being ushered through the small scanner.
“It was racist. It was clear racial triaging. There was no need for me to go through that big scanner. There was no-one there at the smaller scanner. I’m shocked. If I did that as a doctor, I would be struck off. I would lose my job.”
Prof Sheen wrote an official complaint to Manchester Airport after he landed in Grenoble and airport officials in Manchester began an investigation. When he did not initially get a response, the medic contacted his MP, Withington representative Jeff Smith, who wrote to the airport, and officials promised to escalate the complaint.
On May 27 the doctor received an official response from an airport official, who apologised for the delay.
The official told Prof Sheen: “We must adhere to the requisite ratio of body scanner and metal detector usage which explains why there was a queue for the body scanner while the queue for the metal detector remained free. On that basis our security member was correct to ask you to move to the body scanner for a secondary check.”
A Manchester Airport spokesman told the M.E.N: “We take all allegations of racism incredibly seriously, and this matter was investigated fully in May when the passenger contacted our customer feedback team.”