UK Border Force Officers: Our job is to protect the borders and we're not doing that

There is currently no coronavirus testing of passengers arriving from overseas. One Border Force officer also says workers at Heathrow don't have enough safety equipment to protect them.

"Morale is I’d say very, very low. Because we’ve lost two colleagues, a lot are self isolating. They’ve got the symptoms but we don’t know if they’ve actually got Covid-19 or not. It’s just panic because there are so many self-isolating.

I’ve got family to look after. I’ve got colleagues I see, they’re pretty much like family I’m panicking about them. This is more important than my career now.

If they want to keep the airport open that’s fine I’m more than happy to keep doing the job. But we’ve got to start testing people at the airport as soon as they land.

We could easily get to the plane and just do temperature checks. We could easily do it, just give us the equipment and we’ll do it.

Our job is to protect the border and we’re not doing that.

If someone comes to you they’re right in your face. We haven’t got access to any of that [masks, gloves, PPE]. We’ve asked for it but we don’t get a response. So we just hit a brick wall.

I think most of the managers are working from home because they can so it’s us guys on the frontline.

All we have been given is hand sanitiser and that’s it.

You can’t say anything because if you say something you are going to get disciplined. And it’s pretty hard to get another job in the Civil Service if you’ve got something like that against your name.”

We first raised it back in December that we were not comfortable dealing with flights coming in from China. We said we’d do it but you’ve got to give us something to wear because we don’t know who’s ill and who’s not. I think we were just brushed off. We just got forced into doing it - it’s your job you’ve got to do it.

I’ve got a young family I’m so scared something is going to happen. I sleep in the spare room as well because I don’t want to infect anyone. At the moment I’m thinking of renting somewhere so I could just stay away until all this is over."

Broadcast: 15 Apr 2020 | ITV News London
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