GATE GOURMET, the airline food company at the centre of a bitter industrial dispute, is failing to employ basic security checks on recently recruited casual staff, a Times investigation has discovered.

Some new employees at the company’s plant near Heathrow are neither searched as they enter the secure plant nor subjected to rigorous background examinations, contrary to declared company policy.

Other casual workers appear to pay lip service to hygiene regulations. Ice intended for passengers’ drinks that had fallen on the floor was repacked; some lavatories had been vandalised and left uncleaned and floors were grimy.

The disclosure has prompted an internal investigation at Gate Gourmet and has caused British Airways to re-examine the issues of security at its sole provider of packaged food.

Yesterday, Gate Gourmet’s managers remained locked in talks with union officials as they attempted to resolve the dispute over the sacking of 670 workers two weeks ago.

I discovered a number of lapses after getting a job as a casual worker. After a cursory vetting process, I walked into the plant for a single eight-hour shift carrying a tape recorder, a telephone and a camera. By the end of the day, I was working at the last point before food was loaded on to aircraft, sealing catering packs.

A terrorist would have been able to exploit the minimal checks to smuggle a bomb, a gun or a knife on to a BA trolley bound for the US. My experiences also raise questions about levels of hygiene; the men’s lavatories, which had not been cleaned for some weeks, were in an appalling state.

I signed up as a Gate Gourmet casual worker, paid £6 an hour, on Tuesday through the recruitment agency Blue Arrow in Uxbridge, West London. A staff member gave me a form that asked me to account for five years of employment history, leaving no gaps of more than 14 days. I filled it in being as truthful as I could, but clearly leaving out that I worked for The Times. Instead, I said that I had worked for a delivery company for six years in a number of roles such as a driver and an assistant chef.

I used my real name to apply for the job, as well as my own passport as identification.

I was asked to supply four referees: two professional and two personal. I warned three associates that they might receive a call from an employment agency asking for a reference.

Marilyn Lewis, an applicant development manager for Blue Arrow, checked my details, and telephoned three of my references in front of me. Two of my referees confirmed my story, and the other was unavailable.

She then told me to report for work at 2pm the next day at the Heathrow site and said that no other checks would be necessary. When I asked about crossing a picket line, she said “Don’t worry about that, they won’t bother you.”

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