Customs men bullied girl, says father

Press, 27 November 1979, Page 14

Customs men bullied girl, says father

Customs officers at Christchurch Airport bullied a young girl travelling alone until she cried, according to her father. Mr M. B. McClelland said his daughter, Donna, aged 14, arrived at Christchurch last Thursday evening from Brisbane. Although she was among the first of the 142 passengers off the aircraft she was the last to leave the Customs hall. He waited more than an hour" and a quarter for her. “They really upset Donna,” he said. "She came out of the hall in tears.” Mr McClelland believes it was the attitude of the Customs officers that upset his daughter. “They were definitely bullying her,” he said. “She is not one to get upset easily.”

Mr McClelland said he had seen the head Customs officer that evening but had got little satisfaction from him. Miss McClelland said difficulties first arose when she was asked to pay duty of $64 on a radio-cassette player she had brought back for her father. She did not have this amount and was redirected to another queue to arrange

for the radio to be placed in bond until it could be paid for. However, this was not explained to her, she said. While this was being arranged the Customs officer examined her suitcase. “If he could have he would have ripped the seams out,” she said. “He tipped everything out of the case and took it away. I didn’t know what they were' doing with it.” Miss McClelland said she had not known what was going on. “I asked them but they didn’t tell me.” She said the officers should have fetched her father from the terminal. “They knew he was out there because he had asked twice what had happened to me.” Mr P. A. Anderton, supervising Customs officer at the airport, said he had spoken to Mr McClelland after Miss McClelland had been examined, “He was pretty angry and demanded to talk to the boss,” he said. “He was upset and claimed we had harassed his daughter.” Mr Anderton said the delay stemmed from the fact that Miss McClelland had not been able to pay duty on the

radio-cassette player. She had had to wait in line to arrange for the radio to be placed in bond and there had been a further delay while an Air New Zealand officer had been found to deal with this. While this was going on the officer had decided to search her case. “At this stage everything had been handled quite amicably,” said Mr Anderton. “She said goodbye to the officer and when she left the hall she was not in tears. “Meanwhile, her- father was waiting outside and getting angry. I can only presume that when she arrived in the public area it was his attitude that caused her to break down in tears. “He obviously felt there had been an unjustifiable delay.” Mr Anderton said the passengers had been processed in less than an hour. The girl's father had made much of the fact that she was only 14 but she looked much older. ... “Had we realised that she was only 14 we would probably have handled it differently,” Mr Anderton said.