I fly in Asia where the rules are adapted for the circumstances and the liquid rule is exempt for pilots at all our airports. But travelling through LHR T3 recently as a pax, I observed appalling behaviour from a security screener. An elderly passenger of middle eastern appearance in western dress was confused as to the exact procedure and was asking the security man what to do. The screener ignored the passenger. After several times asking, the passenger assumed the screener was deaf and tapped him on the shoulder and which point the idiot turned around and shouted that he was not to be touched and if it happened again, the passenger would be arrested. The poor passenger looked visibly shaken, I explained what I considered to be the procedure while the idiot stood there continuing to stare blankly at the wall. I considered raising the point at the time but realising the idiot had far more powers that his intellect could cope with, I said nothing.
As expected, myself and the poor other passenger got special treatment, myself being asked some very leading (and rather stupid) questions. The poor old guy was shaking at the end of it, I felt I had to apologise for my country. As we were in the ''by invitation line'' we were both travelling on premium tickets, in my case the Airport Passenger Duty was GBP188. Is that what we're paying for?
I made a note of all the details and addressed them to a security manager at LHR from my work e-mail so he could see I was employed in the industry. I haven't had a reply.