Brad Jayakody, a 30-year-old IT consultant, claims that he was stopped while going through a security check at Heathrow a few weeks ago because he was wearing a T-shirt showing Megatron, the leader of the evil alien robots from the Transformers franchise. 

“We won't be able to let you through because your T-shirt has got a gun on it,” he was told.

Megatron's gun was apparently deemed “offensive” by the Heathrow security guards, who told the consultant that, since Megatron was holding a gun, he would not be allowed on the airplane.   

Jayakody says that he had to change his T-shirt before he was allowed to board his flight to Dusseldorf.

A spokesman for the British Airports Authority (BAA) explained: “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 added that Jayakody “certainly didn’t make a formal complaint at the time” and that there was no record of the incident.