Bertie, I totally agree with your sentiments.
I've said it before more than once (first in 1995), but these passengers (or any others) should have been re-scheduled to fly either with 32 Sqn, one of the C-130 squadrons or by civvie air transport. Or postponed until another SH was available.
Not in an experimental aircraft that was deemed unsafe to fly by the very department tasked with bringing it into service.
The Chinook Mk2, (as a type), should NOT have been flying at all. If those running the show at Command and MOD level had any morals or common sense, instead of an insistance and a spiteful indignance to put this type prematurely into service, they would have agreed and grounded it until the airworthiness concerns had been met.
I wonder what input the RAF's Flight Safety organisation had at this time.