"Deeply disturbing" move made to gag airport critic

Thursday 02 January 2020

One of Guernsey Airport's most outspoken critics on social media says he's been spoken to by a plain clothed police officer in an effort to silence him - with the businessman involved saying that move has potentially broken data protection laws and violated his right to free speech.

David Piesing, a business director in Guernsey, regularly criticises the long wait times and what he calls the inefficient security practices at the airport using his personal Twitter account. He was one of the first people to point out that the changes made last year were causing huge queues and he has continued to tweet about his experiences regularly since then.

Today, while travelling from Guernsey to London, he found himself confronted by a plain clothed police officer, who asked to speak to him in a private room. 

Well, @GuernseyAirport security have really dug a deep hole now. It went swimmingly this morning, the quickest ever and I was going to post that. Until...I was targeted by PC71 who took me into a private room and warned me about my criticism of the airport security on Twitter!

— David Piesing (@DavidPiesing63) January 2, 2020

"I sailed through airport security at 09:30 this morning - the airport was very quiet and the security process was exceptionally good, no issues at all. I gathered my bag and then a plain clothes PC71 identifies himself and asked me my name. I told him and he asked me to go to a private room as he wanted a word with me," Mr Piesing told Express.

"He said that it was nothing to worry about but he was advising me to be very careful regarding my public criticism of the airport security service on social media. I interrupted him and pointed out that any complaints were entirely a civil matter and nothing to do with the police. He said that wouldn’t be the case if they were 'abusive or threatening or overstepped the mark'. I assured him that they hadn’t been, and that I was well aware of what is and is not acceptable on social media.

"I told him that I wasn’t interested in his meaningless 'advice' and that I 'didn’t give a sh*t that somebody seemed upset about being criticised if and when the service was appropriate to criticise', and I stressed that the service that morning had been very good. 

"I reiterated that it was a civil matter and that there was nothing more to be said. I said that this would be all over social media shortly and that he 'would be famous by tonight'. I then left."

Mr Piesing tweeted what had happened, stirring up a storm on social media. A number of islanders reacted in shock to hearing what had happened. 

That's outrageous. Can I expect a knock on the door for being critical of @Govgg when writing in @GuernseyPress ?

— Richard Digard (@richarddigard) January 2, 2020

Are you serious? @GuernseyAirport that is an utter disgrace. You need to publicly apologise to David. Is this China? North Korea?? I’m stunned.

— Mat Keeling ???????? ???????? (@keelingover) January 2, 2020

Mr Piesing said he was deeply disturbed that the airport security authorities had thought it was "remotely appropriate" to try and "silence [him] in this way".

"It is a clear and blatant breach of GDPR to misuse airline passenger list information for anything other than bona fide security issues, border control checks or other criminal matters.  To use it for attempting to quash well-deserved public criticism of a taxpayer-funded service is a breach and I shall be formally complaining to the Data Protection Commissioner about that.

"Rather than trying to defend the indefensible and abusing police resources, the airport authorities really need to wake up and smell the coffee and focus on improving the delivery of an inept public service. Being in a state of denial is not going to solve anything. They need to carry out independent detailed time and motion/efficiency studies to highlight just how poor the service is, and they need to send probably half the staff on customer training courses as they have no idea what customer service is about. This is nothing new."

Needless to say, I told PC71 exactly what I thought, that I’m well aware of my rights, and that this would be reported today on social media. Messrs Nicholas and Le Ray @GuernseyAirport need to quickly apologize and wake up and smell the coffee. They are a pathetic disgrace.

— David Piesing (@DavidPiesing63) January 2, 2020

Much of Mr Piesing's criticism that has been aimed at Guernsey Airport has been because of how long security wait times have become and how rigorous security checks now are. 

He said he had had people getting in touch with him since he started tweeting about his experiences, telling their own various stories: "people have contacted me to tell me about an elderly lady being ordered to remove her prosthetic leg, a Sikh was asked to remove his turban, and several passengers of both sexes have complained about having felt that they were sexually violated when being searched with the handwand. These are not isolated incidents. Many passengers daren’t complain in case they miss their flight if they cause a scene. This behaviour cannot and must not be swept under the carpet."

Guernsey Airport were approached for comment and issued this statement to Express:

Pictured top: Mr Pieising was accosted by a plain clothed police officer in security at Guernsey Airport and told to stop criticising them on social media.