Britain safe from Decepticon attack, for now

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Man threatened with arrest at Heathrow for wearing Transformers T-shirt

An airline passenger claimed that a security guard threatened to arrest him because he was wearing a T-shirt showing a cartoon robot with a gun.

Brad Jayakody, 30, from London, said he was stopped from passing through security at Heathrow's Terminal 5 after his Transformers T-shirt was deemed 'offensive.'

The IT consultant was set to fly off on a business trip to Dusseldorf in Germany when he was pulled to one side.


(Brad Jayakody wearing the Transformers T-shift which caused offence at Heathrow)

Mr Jayakody said the first guard started joking with him about the Transformers character depicted on his French Connection T-shirt.

'"Then he explains that since Megatron is holding a gun, I'm not allowed to fly,' he said.

'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?

He was cooperative with the supervisor and took off the the 'offensive' T-shirt, replacing it with another shirt in his carry on luggage.

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.'

He said there was no record of the incident and the passenger 'certainly didn't make a formal complaint at the time.'

Yeah airports are pretty ridiculous these days.

whats next: "sorry sir we'll need to sow your ass hole up because plastic explosies may be hidden their."

Next time I fly then, I must remember to wear my "911 was an inside job" tee shirt, bet they would Love that.

Morons. People don't have a right not to be offended. That's the whole problem with PC. Saying you dislike something because you think it's offensive is one thing, trying to force everyone to censor what certain interest groups consider offensive just because the people that support that interest group is offended is quite another thing entirely. Here in the US, for example, we don't ban Neo-Nazi marches, instead we let anti-racism and Jewish groups to bring out an even bigger counter-march!

stupid thing to get offended over. it is a cartoon robot dammit. PC taken too far.

Too right! While the authorities were getting their knickers all in a twist over this chap's T-shirt, somebody else could have been sneaking something dangerous onto the plane.

It's not the first time the PC crowd have had a problem with Transformers. I remember back in the 80's when the Megatron toy transformed into a realistic looking walther p-38 handgun. When they came out with the reissues of the classic toys (G1) in 2003-2005, they couldn't reissue Megs in the US out of some PC-driven fear that some kid would point him at a cop and get shot. Nvm that the only ppl buying the Transformers reissues were the adults who grew up on the G1 series and still fans. And also nvm that the laws concerning toy guns specify they can be realistic looking if they have a bright orange barrel. So why didn't they just slap an orange barrel on him?

He looks pissed off in that photo.

Translated thoughts:

"First you try to take my favorite transformer shirt, now you follow me camera? GRrrrrrr. You better be happy I don't take anti-depressants "