Singer Christy Moore was detained and questioned by British police for hours at Holyhead in 2004 “for entertainment or curiosity value”, the Department of Foreign Affairs complained to the head of British ports policing.
In October, 2004, Moore and his driver were questioned under the Prevention of Terrorism Act at the Welsh port by Britain’s special branch police about song lyrics, personal details and family members as the pair made their way to a number of concerts in Britain.
The singer later made a strongly-worded complaint, saying he had found the detectives’ action “threatening”, “frightening” and “saddening”. He said it left him feeling as though he had been treated as a suspect.
The Moore case featured prominently at a meeting between officials at the Department of Foreign Affairs and their counterparts at the British Home Office in December that year, according to records now released to the National Archives.
The meeting was called after a sharp rise in the number of complaints made that year over the treatment meted out to Irish people travelling through British ports and airports.
Three main areas of concern were raised by the Irish officials: the photographing of passengers without their knowledge, stops and examinations under the Terrorism Act 2000, and intrusive demands for personal information.
In Moore’s “high-profile” case, the Irish side said he had faced an inappropriate line of questioning and the examination room where he was held for two hours was locked after he arrived at Holyhead with his friend and driver, Michael Devine.
Eamonn McKee, an official for the Foreign Affairs Anglo-Irish Division at the time, questioned Commander Bob Milton – who was the UK’s national co-ordinator of ports policing – about Moore’s case.
McKee brought up the issue of inappropriate lines of questioning and the damage that can be done should a person feel they are being questioned for entertainment or curiosity value.
Refusing to comment on individual cases, Milton spoke about the training problems that could occur with inexperienced officers, saying it was up to passengers to make complaints to local chief constables, who could decide on disciplinary action.
The note of the meeting stated: “As regards locking the room Mr Moore was detained in, Milton considered that it was up to the officer to decide whether it was necessary to lock an examination room based on whether the person was likely to leave. He did acknowledge that there could be a health-and-safety issue.”
The Irish officials made clear that their main complaint centred on the photographing of passengers, saying that people were unaware their images were being captured on the British side.
Defending the practice, the Home Office said it was standard at airports where there was a common departures area for international and domestic travellers, including those travelling between Ireland and Britain covered by the Common Travel Area (CTA).
“The CTA and domestic travellers are photographed, and a barcode stuck to their boarding cards so as to prevent any possibility of boarding cards being swapped after check-in,” an Irish summary of the meeting records.
The photographs were stored for no longer than 48 hours, British officials insisted, but they accepted that there was greater need to display better information signs and to improve training.
The British officials accepted there was a need for “better protocols” to govern the stopping and examination of Irish air and ferry passengers under Schedule 7 of the Terrorism Act 2000.
Passengers should be able clearly to understand why they had been stopped, but also to have “reasonable expectations” about how police should conduct any subsequent interviews, they agreed.
They acknowledged that passengers who miss their flights because they were detained should be given a form that could be provided to an airline confirming that the person had been detained outside their control.
Defending the demands for personal information – which was known as “carding” at the time – the British officials said it was a “quick way of obtaining information without resorting to an examination”.
