bjcc:
Ranger One...I'm sorry where does the 'punishment' for visiting the bathroom come into it?
In the usenet thread (google groups) I quoted in my initial post, a passenger who was on the flight reported:
The initial response from the police was " No you cant use the toilet" when this was challenged, the officer said, "if you don't do as I say, I will make sure that you don't fly out of EMA today" In fact none of us flew!
In other words, it's clear there was a threat - if a passenger insisted on being allowed to use the toilet (reasonable request), the officer would make a point of making things 'difficult' for them (unreasonable).
Note in all this I'm not saying that in detaining the passengers the Police did anything they didn't reasonably feel they had to do. It probably seemed the necessary thing to do at the time, and I'd be wary of second-guessing the Police decisons from my armchair with all the benefit of hindsight. Exactly as I would when people second-guess the actions of an aircraft commander without all the evidence.
The point I AM making is that there seems (from other posts I've read, here and elsewhere) to be at least some degree of doubt as to whether the detentions were lawful. And they certainly weren't pleasant, due to lack of refreshments and difficulty with toiletting.
Perhaps there needs to be a change in the law to make it clear that the police DO have the power to act as they did in such situations, and procedures must be put in place to ensure that the reasonable needs of passengers so detained are met - and to make explicit who is responsible for meeting them - since such situations will undoubtedly occur again.
The industry is in a dire enough situation already without own goals like this!
R1