About three years ago I suddenly flipped from always getting through the e-gates to never getting through the e-gates. At that point the officers used to say I probably didn’t look enough like the photo any more because my passport was eight years old.

Last year I got a new passport, and that didn’t work at the e-gates from day one either. After another four or five failed attempts to get through the e-gates, an officer eventually advised me that the chip wasn’t working in the new passport. So I followed the procedure as stated on the Passport Office’s website. I sent the passport by recorded delivery with a covering letter detailing when and where I had been advised the chip was faulty. They wrote back and asked me to fill in another passport application and send them another couple of passport photos, and they duly sent me a free replacement passport and reimbursed all of my costs (the recorded deliveries and photos etc).

Earlier this evening, I tried to use this latest passport to enter through the e-gates at Heathrow, and lo and behold I STILL couldn’t get through. So that made it three years and three different passports with zero success.

When I spoke to the immigration officer at the desk this evening, he categorically assured me that no amount of replacement passports would solve this problem. He said the computer system confirmed that there is a warrant out for somebody with the same name as me, and ‘until that gets resolved, you will not be able to use the e-gates’.

All of which begs the question, why could I not be told this in the first place? I will now have to continue trying to get through the e-gates until one day, miraculously the person they are looking for will have been caught or died, and I will be able to enter my country of citizenship normally again.