I have seen the security staff at Heathrow humiliate elderly, frail people before, when I have been passing through.
Personally I think it is outrageous; when a couple. or a small group of elderly people who have mobility issues at the best of time are made to go through the scanners a couple of times when they can barely hobble along, and suffer body searches, requests to remove flat soled shoes etc it's quite clear that they are in no way terrorists nor capable of bringing a plane down. Common sense appears to go out of the window for these "jobs-worths", unless they get some sort of morbid pleasure from seeing the elderly suffer