How Safe is Heathrow?

In August 2006, the terror threat at Heathrow Airport left thousands of passengers stranded, facing cancelled flights, wearying delays and intense security checks. Those passengers might have assumed that elsewhere in the airport security was just as stringent - Dispatches reveals worrying evidence that calls this into question. This film uncovers the chinks in Heathrow's armour that make it vulnerable to million-pound heists and security breaches terrorists could exploit.

Over the past decade, Heathrow has become a magnet for criminal activity, with the number of vehicle hijackings and armed attacks related to the airport becoming an international embarrassment. One member of the police's flying squad admits 'There have been very vicious violent armed robberies and we have been lucky along the way that no-one has been seriously maimed'.

Dispatches investigates the first major airside robbery in which criminals plundered the airport's cargo area of £4.5 million – just months after the 9/11 attacks. The ease with which crimes such as these were carried out alarmed international companies, threatening the airport's business prospects and troubling the Government.

Dispatches has obtained a restricted document which reveals just how grave the situation was deemed by ministers to be. As a direct result of this document and Government pressure, the Metropolitan Police formed 'Operation Grafton' to deal with Heathrow-related crimes. This operation discovered sophisticated criminal networks which stretched from within the airport to surrounding areas – identifying one village nearby in particular as having a 'criminal element'.

Members of Operation Grafton tell Dispatches how they had a major breakthrough when one gang member who worked at the airport turned 'supergrass.' He explained how he had exploited the gaps in the stop-and-search regime to take stolen goods out of the airport. Equally worrying, he revealed how he had managed to drive criminals into the most secure, restricted zone within the airport without being detected.

The formation of Operation Grafton and the information from the gang member led to the foiling of what would have been the biggest airside robbery at Heathrow. But despite this success, Dispatches has discovered further weak points in the airport's security system that would effectively enable people to walk from landside to airside unchallenged, and the flaws in the vetting of airport staff.

With Britain facing a 'persistent and very real' threat from terrorism, as announced by Home Secretary John Reid, this film reveals the startling security lapses within the world's busiest international airport. As Graham Deane, the Chairman of Forward Logistics, an international freight carrier that has been subjected to several armed attacks, says: 'After 9/11 one would have thought that security would have got tighter, but it's plain to see it didn't'.

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