news Ex-basketball player John Amaechi tells of ‘humiliating’ Heathrow search | Heathrow airport

The psychologist and ex-basketball player John Amaechi said he was left feeling furious and humiliated after being privately searched at Heathrow airport, having been told he was

too big for the security scanners.Amaechi said he had the invasive search after first being “randomly selected” by a beep from a security arch. Staff blamed his height when he

was flagged by a second scanner in the first-class security queue at Terminal 5.The 52-year-old, a renowned speaker, company director and bestselling author, was heading to the

British Airways lounge before a flight to Dublin last Wednesday for a board meeting of a FTSE-listed company. He says as a frequent traveler he has been selected for additional

searches at airports on 50% of trips.However, Amaechi said he had never before been told he was “too big” at security. He said: “I am a 6ft 9in black man standing in

security, clearly not able to move on from my free will – and the passengers in that salubrious part of the airport are looking at me, like what's he done, as I stand there for

12-15 minutes before any one shows up.“Then you go into a private room where two men watch you while you are searched – more invasive than when people can see you. The idea

that a random beep can escalate to that seems outrageous to me.”Heathrow said it was investigating the incident. The airport declined to answer if there was any maximum height

for passengers to pass through its scanners. Amaechi said they were “standard scanners. I've been in them many times.”After Amaechi tweeted about the incident, the white

British champion rower Matthew Pinsent replied: “Data point from a similar sized block. I have never been selected for 'private' search at a UK airport. Didn't even know they

existed.”Other replies from people of color echoed long-running experiences of being similarly “randomly selected” for additional searches.Amaechi told the Guardian: “I'm

extraordinarily privileged. It exercises me so much because I recognize that if it's happened to me – good lord, what is it like for everyone else? No amount of education or

preparation can prevent this.”Amaechi said that two of the three security officers, who were Asian, were “polite, courteous, empathetic” and “apologetic and understood my

humiliation, I think, out of personal experience”.But he said: “They were part of a system that says some people look like trouble and some people don't. It's not Heathrow's

problem in terms of its source – but it is in Heathrow's gift to change how they respond.”Archie Bland and Nimo Omer take you through the top stories and what they mean, free