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

 

By Daily Mail Reporter

Last updated at 1:04 PM on 02nd June 2008

 

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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.'

 

 

The Optimus Prime character on Mr Jayakody's T-shirt is the most well known of the series

 

Be careful when traveling and sportin those Tee's from Target.

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

Yeah. That ain't Megatron on his shirt. I'm calling shenanigans!!

Guess I can never fly since 80% of my t-shirts are Transformers themed.

Bush league!

LOL! The United States and Japan should team up and conquer the world already.

With GIANT ROBOTS

But the American robots would all be plastic :(

But the American robots would all be plastic :(

 

That's how they sneak through airport security!

Both the USA and Japan are comfortable with violence, sometimes even more-so with Japan, we could kick the shot out of the rest of the world. The British are scared of a Transformers t-shirt, the Germans won't allow any of their cars to be Transformers, and the Australians regard MP Megatron as a real fire-arm. We've already got three first-world nations running scared.

I just read about this on the AP wire at the newspaper where I work. I'm pretty sure that everyone else in my office didn't appreciate it when I just said "What the FUCK?!" out loud.

 

:redface