Convicted sex offender given job at Manchester Airport
A convicted sex offender was given a job frisking passengers at Manchester Airport.
James Burns, 56, was employed as an aviation security officer and passed a criminal record and counter terrorism check, reports the Manchester Evening News.
The checks failed to highlight his convictions for historic sex assaults because the Police National Computer at the time did not include all offences from the 70s and 80s.
Mr Burns, from Bolton, also managed to get the job in 2013 despite facing fresh allegations of abusing a teenage boy.
He did not tell his bosses about the allegations and it was not until he was convicted after a trial at Manchester Crown Court in March this year that his past came to light.
Mr Burns was found guilty of four counts of sexual assault on a 16-year-old boy, taking place between August and December 2007.
He was suspended on full pay, but has still not been sacked.
This week, he received a nine-month sentence suspended for two years, 12-month supervision order, and placed on the sexual offenders register for 10 years, according to ITV News.
At the trial it was revealed that Burns had previous convictions for indecent assault on a teenage boy from 1980, and two public order offences in 1983 and 1984 for propositioning young men for sex in the Bolton area.
A Manchester Airport spokesman told the Mirror: "All security officers are given a criminal records check and a counter terrorism check, before they can be based at a UK airport, and the checks highlighted no disqualifying offences.
"Had the check shown up the offences from the 1980s Burns would have been disqualified from working at the airport."
A spokesman added that Burns remained suspended on full pay from his job.
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Back in October 2013, a drunk passenger caused a scene at Manchester Airport by stripping naked on the runway. See the story below:
