Passenger’s abusive rant over checks on passport

A PLANE passenger has been found guilty of sending offensive tweets after she was stopped at Border Control by a Muslim passport officer.

Philomena Anderson was subjected to additional checks after arriving at Edinburgh Airport on a flight from Italy last year.

The 49-year-old later posted a series of offensive messages on the airport’s Twitter page claiming Border Force officer Sayima Mohammed had stopped her only because of her skin colour.

She claimed Miss Mohammed was ‘profiling blacks’ during passport checks last May. Anderson posted tweets stating, ‘You people are killing in the name of

‘Putting us all at risk’

Allah’ and ‘Your fellow Muslims are putting us all at risk’.

The offensive comments also called Miss Mohammed ‘Hijab girl’ and one tweet contained the words ‘suicide bomber’.

Anderson, who is from Ghana but lives in Edinburgh, denied being responsible and blamed her daughter for the posts.

But yesterday at Edinburgh Sheriff Court she was found guilty of behaving in a threatening or abusive manner by uttering religious and offensive remarks online between May 26 and June 4 last year.

Miss Mohammed, 43, told the court she stopped Anderson at passport control because she ‘looked different to the person in her passport’ picture.

She said she kept her waiting for ‘a maximum of 20 minutes’ while she checked her documents with the Home Office and then allowed her to leave.

Sheriff Thomas Welsh, QC, deferred sentence until next month.