{"id":205380,"date":"2025-06-22T15:07:14","date_gmt":"2025-06-22T15:07:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/205380\/"},"modified":"2025-06-22T15:07:14","modified_gmt":"2025-06-22T15:07:14","slug":"i-was-kicked-out-of-dubai-and-flown-back-to-manchester-over-my-tattoos","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/205380\/","title":{"rendered":"‘I was kicked out of Dubai and flown back to Manchester over my tattoos’"},"content":{"rendered":"

“I’m a lovely lad, I get on with anyone”<\/p>\n

15:22, 22 Jun 2025Updated 15:25, 22 Jun 2025<\/p>\n

\"JordanJordan Howman says he was pulled to one side at the airport before being sent back to Manchester(Image: SWNS)<\/p>\n

A Cheshire<\/a> dad says he was ‘devastated’ and his partner left in tears after being kicked out of Dubai over his face tattoos.<\/p>\n

Jordan Howman, 34, flew from Manchester Airport<\/a> to Dubai, where he landed for a week-long holiday.<\/p>\n

It was supposed to be a dream trip alongside his fiance\u0301e Theresa, 38, and daughter Kaic, 16.<\/p>\n

But Jordan says things turned sour when immigration officers pulled him to one side at the airport, before confiscating his passport.<\/p>\n

The plasterer, from Crewe, says he had ‘worked his a*** off’ to save up for the \u00a33,000 trip and was hoping to spend five days seeing the United Arab Emirates, which he described as his ‘favourite country in the world’.<\/p>\n

\"JordanJordan Howman is heavily tattooed – but says it wasn’t an issue on previous trips to Dubai(Image: SWNS)<\/p>\n

Instead, Mr Howman claims he was held for six hours before immigration officers sent him packing ‘because of his face tattoos’.<\/p>\n

Jordan got the geometric cubes tattooed on his face around eight or nine years ago alongside words like ‘blessed’, ‘family’ and ‘crazy life’.<\/p>\n

He says the tattoos had never caused problems during his previous two visits to Dubai, but on this occasion he was less fortunate.<\/p>\n

“My missus has been crying her eyes out,” he said. “It has absolutely devastated me. I feel like I’ve been massively discriminated against. There’s no law against face tattoos – there’s nothing like that.<\/p>\n

“I’m a lovely lad, I get on with anyone. It’s made me feel absolutely rubbish. I’m not allowed in a country because of the way I look. It’s properly, massively affected me.<\/p>\n

“It was my favourite country, but this has absolutely ruined it. Now I’ll never go again. I’ve lost all of my money because of a pattern on my face.”<\/p>\n

Mr Howman’s Emirates<\/a> flight from Manchester landed at Dubai International Airport on Wednesday (June 11) at 7.30am.<\/p>\n

\"JordanJordan was devastated by what happened(Image: SWNS)<\/p>\n

“It was my third trip to Dubai,” he said. “I’d had no problems all the other times. But this time, as we got in, I scanned my passport and was just about to go through security when an airport worker pulled us aside.<\/p>\n

“We were about to put our hand luggage on the conveyor belt when the man said: ‘Follow me’.”<\/p>\n

After taking Mr Howman aside, the man asked if he’d had his passport stamped before taking it from him.<\/p>\n

“Then he snatched my passport out of my hand,” he said. “There had been nowhere to stamp it – we’d used the electronic gates. It was just an excuse to get the passport out of my hand.”<\/p>\n

After being held in a waiting room for over four hours, Mr Howman was transferred to immigration at around 12am, he said. By this time, his family had reached their five star Anantara hotel.<\/p>\n

He called his partner and she got a taxi to the airport but he says ‘they wouldn’t let me see her’ and she got a taxi back to the hotel, costing a total of \u00a3250.<\/p>\n

Join the Manchester Evening News <\/strong>WhatsApp<\/strong> group <\/strong>HERE<\/a><\/p>\n

Mr Howman said he was not given his passport back for some time which was ‘terrifying’.<\/p>\n

“A woman came and took me upstairs to immigration, where they said: ‘He’s not coming in because of his face tattoos – you’re not coming in because of the way you look’,” he said.<\/p>\n

“One of the staff behind the desk said a more senior immigration officer made the decision, saying I was not to enter Dubai and that I must leave the country immediately.”<\/p>\n

At 2.30pm, Mr Howman was put on another Emirates flight heading back to the UK.<\/p>\n

“They sent me on a flight back to Manchester. It was only when I landed that I got my passport back. Friday morning was the first time I got to see my daughter, over Facetime.”<\/p>\n

The General Directorate of Residency and Foreigners Affairs Dubai have been approached for comment. Dubai Airports was also contacted for comment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"“I’m a lovely lad, I get on with anyone” 15:22, 22 Jun 2025Updated 15:25, 22 Jun 2025 Jordan…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":205381,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,4],"tags":[2508,35121,2406,2314,12,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-205380","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-uk","8":"category-united-kingdom","9":"tag-cheshire","10":"tag-emirates","11":"tag-holidays","12":"tag-manchester-airport","13":"tag-news","14":"tag-uk","15":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114727645657909872","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/205380","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=205380"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/205380\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/205381"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=205380"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=205380"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=205380"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}