Calais Eurotunnel UK Customs

[muon]

Went for a day trip to France. On way back, UK customs desperately trying to find drugs or weapons in my car. They were dismantling trim etc. For over an hour I had to stand outside in todays 0C weather. This is just before you queue up to board, so I'd already spend ages going through passport control for France and UK.

At the end, I missed two trains. Because I missed the 9.18pm train I should have caught, now waiting for 11.35pm train because they become sparse after the 10.18pm train.

I asked then why they stopped me, and the guy in charge wouldn't tell me. He did say it wasn't random.

Pretty ****, not gonna use euro tunnel ever again. They are allowed to profile he said, and I'll just hit that again. He also proudly exclaims they don't have any accountability like the police. They have powers to do whatever he wants. He kept saying he apologised already like that matters, even had the nerve to tell me to go complain to my MP, when he saw I was getting annoyed at them. Also, as I'm not a lawyer, I kept asking reasonable questions but he became defensive, am I one of those "auditors".

Worst of all they took trim pieces apart which they spent ages trying to put back on properly, and they couldn't. Afterwards the guy tries to tell me, we don't have evidence of what it looked like before. Matching trim pieces from the opposite side are perfectly flush, and I've owned the car since new...

 

[Phemo]

That's pretty harsh. I have seen cars parked up in the inspection area with bumpers removed before now so it could've been worse.

Does make me wonder what their criteria is though. For years I used to go over regularly, like at least once a month and I never had any problems except for one time when I went with a mate. They were asking me a whole bunch of questions when I was returning - why I went to France, what I was doing, where I'd been, what I'd bought, how far I lived from the Eurotunnel terminal, how long I'd known my mate, what my job was, who owned the car and they asked for proof that it was mine (luckily I had my V5C with me) and a whole bunch of other stuff. They had a look through the car and through all the shopping as well as checking all my receipts. In the end they let me go without destroying my car so that's something.

On the plus side I went over again a month or two later and had no problems. Never had any issues subsequently in fact so I'd just assume that was a one-off.

Only other thing I did have was UK passport control (France side) asking me if I had any cigs or booze in the car. I said no because I didn't and she then carried on with the other stuff before finally saying "are you sure you don't have any cigarettes?". Expected my car to be searched at that point but they let me go on. Weird.

 

[muon]

The guy in charge was on a power trip. Pretty sure he was desperate to find something and didn't want to look bad in front of everyone. I felt sorry for his staff, as they could see I was getting gradually more annoyed, I was being polite for a very long time first, and one of them I could overhear was presenting some of the evidence showing my story was fine, and he kept on telling them to do additional searches.

I'm just amazed there is a law enforcement agency in the UK, who can profile (I was obviously racially profiled) and don't have to keep a record of things like that.

Got home, 1am. Should have been home hours ago.

They left the dashcam connected the entire time, so gonna go through that tomorrow.

 

[Jokester]

Customs and Excise are law unto themselves.

 

[Jimbeam3678]

Went for a day trip to France. On way back, UK customs desperately trying to find drugs or weapons in my car. They were dismantling trim etc. For over an hour I had to stand outside in todays 0C weather. This is just before you queue up to board, so I'd already spend ages going through passport control for France and UK.

At the end, I missed two trains. Because I missed the 9.18pm train I should have caught, now waiting for 11.35pm train because they become sparse after the 10.18pm train.

I asked then why they stopped me, and the guy in charge wouldn't tell me. He did say it wasn't random.

Pretty ****, not gonna use euro tunnel ever again. They are allowed to profile he said, and I'll just hit that again. He also proudly exclaims they don't have any accountability like the police. They have powers to do whatever he wants. He kept saying he apologised already like that matters, even had the nerve to tell me to go complain to my MP, when he saw I was getting annoyed at them. Also, as I'm not a lawyer, I kept asking reasonable questions but he became defensive, am I one of those "auditors".

Worst of all they took trim pieces apart which they spent ages trying to put back on properly, and they couldn't. Afterwards the guy tries to tell me, we don't have evidence of what it looked like before. Matching trim pieces from the opposite side are perfectly flush, and I've owned the car since new...

Make a complaint, if you don’t it will never change. Easy to moan etc.

Complaints procedure

Find out how to complain about Border Force and how we deal with complaints.

www.gov.uk

 

[muon]

Make a complaint, if you don’t it will never change. Easy to moan etc.

Complaints procedure

Find out how to complain about Border Force and how we deal with complaints.

www.gov.uk

I will do. The dashcam footage covered the entire thing, even if conversations weren't all captured clearly, just thinking about whether to even disclose this and let them instead dig a hole.

The thing that annoyed me, is that it was obvious racial profiling was at play, it was the elephant in the room making them squirm. Being treated as a second class citizen due to the colour of your skin, is something I hope most people don't have to deal with.