Passed through T5 many times, although very rarely on a domestic flight. Arrived on a flight from MAN tonight with my wife, we were following the signs, somewhat lost sight of them in the reflections in the glass and suddenly realised we were blindly following a few passengers who were in front of us through the doors away from baggage reclaim.

We realised our error just before walking through the doors - so had not exited the area. When we turned around the female security agent challenged us and took visible delight in barking at us that we must proceed through the doors now as she had "not seen us" walk past her. The following attempts all failed to illicit a desirable response:
1) Plea to human decency to forgive us a minor error
2) Appeal to common sense
3) Questioning her job ability as a security guard when, her job is quite clearly to see people and there was no one else with us at the time.

Quickly realised that we were dealing with one of society's less appealing members who revels in the "rules are the rules" mentality and ordering others about. Were even asked "how old arrrre you?" implying we were children for challenging authority.

Gave up, walked through the doors we were ordered to walk through and then had to walk the length of the terminal to "baggage enquiries" where we realised the game - job creation - a whole subset of security personnel exist there to process the passengers who missed the signs. Yes I had to go through security screening again to be met by a BA agent who showed me to my bags.

Wholly unnecessary and quite insulting - especially when the security agent at this secondary screening asked "can't you read?" for missing the baggage claim sign. Very insulting from a public servant. I pointed out that in 30 different airports this year this never happened to us before, including at T5 international arrivals.

Also other airports tend to say clearly "no return beyond this point" or the like. At T5 domestic they have no such warnings, instead they employ a silly girl to bark at you once you make an error rather than pro-actively assist you before.

Net result missed crappy Hoppa bus to hotel, and waited 42 mins in diesel infested wait area for next one (longer than the flight time from MAN) as they were also not having a good day!

Heathrow information guy in purple suit was very sympathetic and said it happens all the time (well why not put up a warning sign?!), BA groundstaff much less so - their attitude was "well at least you got your bags"

Onwards to IST tomorrow morning and, at most other airports, would have checked the bags through but not keen to leave overnight based on past experience at T5. Seems one can't win either way!

Poor show. Really need proper customer service training and do not have airport security staff openly insulting paying passengers who pay thousands per annum in airport and passenger duty. Not proud to be British tonight when that is the welcome.