Shock for man ordered off flight and arrested by armed police at Heathrow... because of a traffic dispute seven months earlier

By Daniel Boffey
Last updated at 12:27 AM on 22nd August 2010

A man was ordered off a flight and arrested by four armed police at Heathrow over a traffic dispute seven months earlier.

Officers swooped on Tom Hardyment as he returned from a trip to Washington – even though he had told them he would be away and had offered five times to fix a date to report to a police station.

The car dealer was led off the Virgin plane, driven away in a cage inside a van, then held in cells for six hours before being released without charge.

Five days later he was told no further action would be taken.

Police were investigating claims from a driver that he had been threatening and racially abusive.

But Mr Hardyment, 40, from Chiswick, West London, said: ‘The passengers must have thought I was a terrorist. The police knew I was on the flight as I’d told them my movements.’

The road incident took place in West London in January.

Mr Hardy­ment swerved at a junction after a car pulled out in front of him. When both cars stopped at lights, an Asian woman leapt out and pounded on his passenger window.

He said: ‘At first I thought it was an attempted robbery. The woman was going berserk.

‘I got out and the woman was screaming abuse. She said she was a nurse looking after a child. I said judging by her violent behaviour she shouldn’t be in charge of children and I’d make sure she never worked in this country again.’

Mr Hardyment believes this may have been misinterpreted as racist. Within days police contacted him over ‘a racist attack’.

On one occasion when he tried to meet police, the officer concerned was away on holiday, and a further meeting was cancelled because a new officer assigned to the case needed more time to research it.

Mr Hardyment had fixed a date to see police after his U.S. trip.

He is making a complaint to the Independent Police Complaints Commission and asking his MP Vince Cable to take up his case.

A Scotland Yard spokesman said: ‘We treat all allegations of race crime seriously.’

From: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1305091/Shock-traffic-row-driver-held-airport-gun-police.html