Talk's Isabel Oakeshott interviews military veteran Gary Costin, who was a contractor working for the Home Office deporting foreign criminals. Until he was sacked for sharing in a private WhatsApp group a headline about a Home Office Muslim staff organisation.
After 15 years of unblemished service escorting often dangerous migrants – murderers, rapists, drug dealers etc – to high-risk countries like Somalia, Afghanistan, Cameroon and Sierra Leone, Gary was summarily dismissed after a whistleblower complained that his WhatsApp post “spread hatred” towards Muslims was tantamount to “bullying”.
Former armourer for the Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers, Gary shared a tweet by then Reform UK leader Richard Tice suggesting that a Home Office Islamic lobbying network “to influence policymakers and support Muslim needs” could be a threat to national security.
00:00 Full interview with sacked veteran Gary Costin
18:12 Isabel Oakeshott analyses interview with Kevin O'Sullivan
Click here for more from Talk https://talk.tv
If you need any help visit: https://talk.tv/helplines
After 15 years of unblemished service escorting often dangerous migrants – murderers, rapists, drug dealers etc – to high-risk countries like Somalia, Afghanistan, Cameroon and Sierra Leone, Gary was summarily dismissed after a whistleblower complained that his WhatsApp post “spread hatred” towards Muslims was tantamount to “bullying”.
Former armourer for the Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers, Gary shared a tweet by then Reform UK leader Richard Tice suggesting that a Home Office Islamic lobbying network “to influence policymakers and support Muslim needs” could be a threat to national security.
00:00 Full interview with sacked veteran Gary Costin
18:12 Isabel Oakeshott analyses interview with Kevin O'Sullivan
Click here for more from Talk https://talk.tv
If you need any help visit: https://talk.tv/helplines
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NewsTranscript
00:00This is a brilliant story, a very harrowing story, that has been brought to us by our excellent
00:06international editor Isabel Oakeshott. She has interviewed a guy called Gary Costin,
00:12who worked for the Home Office deporting foreign criminals, until he was sacked for sharing a
00:18private WhatsApp group, in a private WhatsApp group, a headline about, it's just a newspaper
00:24headline sort of thing, about a Home Office Muslim staff organisation, after 15 years of
00:33unblemished service, escorting often dangerous migrants, murderers, rapists, drug dealers,
00:41to high-risk countries like Somalia, Afghanistan, Cameroon, Sierra Leone. He used to volunteer for
00:47the dangerous trips, he's that kind of a guy. He was summarily dismissed after a whistleblower
00:54complained that his WhatsApp post, private WhatsApp group by the way, spread hatred towards Muslims
01:01and was tantamount to bullying. Gary merely shared a tweet which suggested that a Home Office
01:10Islamic lobbying network was trying to influence policy makers. That's all he did, he didn't put
01:17any comment on it or anything. And he got sacked, he got sacked basically for racism. As he says,
01:28he's lost my, I've lost my confidence, all I want is to clear my name. He's 57 years old,
01:34served his country as an armourer for the Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers,
01:42I think he was in, served in Afghanistan, Iraq, places like that. Came back, got this job,
01:52helping the Home Office deport dangerous criminals, escorting them, keeping passengers safe,
01:59keeping everyone safe. Shared a tweet which was just a headline about a Home Office Muslim staff
02:07organisation which was allegedly trying to influence policy making to make sure that
02:16Muslim needs were served. You know, which is a bit off if there's civil servants there. Anyway,
02:24all Gary did was share this in the WhatsApp group, oh have a look at that, this is interesting. That
02:30was, he didn't put anything on it, for that he's been sacked for racism, Islamophobia,
02:35bullying, it's absolute rubbish, absolute rubbish. The man has lost his life because of that, he's
02:4157 years old, father of one, happily married, obviously he's been out of work now for a year,
02:46the marriage has been tested, he's not, I wouldn't put him so far as to be a broken man, but he's
02:53had a very harrowing time and it's just not fair, it is typical of what's going on in this country
02:59right now. So without further ado, this is Isabel's interview with Gary Costin.
03:05My name's Gary Costin, I'm a veteran of 23 years in the army. I served all over the world on
03:14numerous operational tours. After leaving that, I then went to a firm that worked on a Home Office
03:24contract for deporting foreign national prisoners. I joined that in 2009 and served with them for 15
03:33years. So tell us a bit about the job that you were doing for the Home Office. You were working
03:38for a contractor to the Home Office and your main job was helping with the deportation of
03:44foreign criminals? My job was to remove foreign national prisoners out of the country, whether
03:49on scheduled flights or charter flights. I mean, that's probably quite a tough job. Most people
03:56don't want to be removed. Did you enjoy the job? It was challenging and yes, I did enjoy it.
04:02I felt like I was still serving my country. You were actually involved in quite a high profile
04:09and controversial deportation, weren't you? Going back a few years. Talk to us about that.
04:152018, around October. I can't remember the gentleman's name and I say gentleman loosely.
04:23He was part of a gang rape group and I was on a Turkish flight going to,
04:33heading hopefully to Turkey and then on to Somalia. On the flight, as we restrained the
04:39gentleman, he started to scream and shout. Where was this, in Heathrow? This was in Heathrow, yes.
04:45And while that was happening, the whole back cabin decided to make a song and dance about
04:52things and film everything. This was the ordinary passengers because this, as you put it rather
04:57generously, gentleman, gang rapist, was being deported on a flight with ordinary passengers.
05:05Correct. At the back of the planes, kept separate presumably. Correct. There was a team of about
05:10five of us to deport him. He was in restraint. He started screaming and passengers started to film,
05:18shout, get him off and bits and pieces. We eventually after talking to the captain,
05:25we're told to remove him from the aircraft. Why did they want to get him off? Was it because they
05:30were scared of him or was it because they felt sorry for him? They felt sorry for him, I think.
05:35It's all over YouTube. You can still Google it these days and it's still there.
05:41So we took him off. I mean, you can see you in that YouTube footage doing your job very well.
05:48You know, the passengers were all kicking off. You were very calm. You weren't able to tell them,
05:56were you, why he was being deported. That's against the rules. So they didn't know that
06:01the person that they were sympathetic to was actually a gang rapist. It's one of the rules.
06:07Their GDPR, so to speak, their personal, whatever anyone's done, we can't inform anybody.
06:14We've just got to get on with the job and take the, we normally take the abuse more than they do
06:20because we're not allowed to say what they've done, whether they're a rapist, whether they're
06:24a murderer, whether a drug dealer. We've just got to actually treat everyone the same and with
06:30respect and take them home. In April last year, all of a sudden you got suspended. Tell us why.
06:37Correct. I was sent a WhatsApp post from a friend who was in the union and was one of my union reps
06:49and basically I then shared it on a small group of colleagues, all of who I saw as friends
06:57and posted it. So this was a WhatsApp group, was it? Correct. It was a WhatsApp group.
07:03And how many people were in the WhatsApp group? About 12 with myself. Okay. And so you shared,
07:10it was a screenshot, was it? Correct. So just by way of background, at that time in April last
07:17year, newspapers were running story about an Islamic network in the Home Office and this was
07:24like a staff group basically. It was sanctioned by the Home Office and the story was that this
07:30Islamic network, that's what it was called, might not entirely have an agenda that aligns with
07:36government priorities. So people were asking questions, politicians were up in arms and
07:43there was quite a fuss in the media about it. So the thing that you shared was simply a screenshot
07:49of a post on X by the journalist Stephen Edgington who had broken this story and he was just telling
07:58his ex-followers about what the story was. And there was also in the same screenshot,
08:02there was some reaction from the then leader of the Reform Party who was also saying,
08:07this is the news, I'm paraphrasing here and I've got some questions about it. That was it?
08:13Correct. Okay. The only thing on that screenshot was the person, whoever sent it to me,
08:19I commented the bottom of it and that was it. Right. I never commented on anything,
08:26I just sent it as it was. And what was the reason for sharing that? Just general information.
08:32I felt that it actually was relevant to my colleagues. And your department? And my department,
08:39yes. And just to explain, the WhatsApp group that you were in, it was an internal WhatsApp
08:44group, so it's not social media that is available to the wider public to see, it's a work WhatsApp
08:50group. Were you allowed to have a work WhatsApp group? Yes. Okay. The people on there, we just
08:55used it generally for general information, whether there was traffic, whether things were running
09:01late, just if anyone had had any incidents down the route, to help avoid it and make our lives
09:10easier amongst ourselves. And was it unusual to share a news story like that? No, because before
09:16that, there'd been a lot in the news about Rwanda and we were sharing that quite regular between
09:23ourselves. Because that affected your department? Correct. And we weren't sure how many people we
09:28would be recruiting for, how many people we would be taking back, where we would be going. People
09:35were just sending information. So this was about the Rwanda scheme that has now been abandoned?
09:42Yes, it's now defunct. But that was the last sort of thing other than what I posted on that was in
09:49the news that I know of. So there was nothing unusual about sharing a news story, a headline
09:54that was relevant to the work of the Home Office. So why do you think there was a problem with your
10:02post? I mean, what happened after you posted it? Did anyone in the WhatsApp group react? Did anyone
10:08say you shouldn't have posted it? No one reacted whatsoever. Basically, and I still don't know how
10:16or why, but there was a whistleblower and they complained. So what happened next?
10:24Within, I think, two days of me actually posting it, I was called in the office,
10:31asked did I post this on the WhatsApp group, which, as I've always been open and honest, I said yes.
10:39I was then immediately suspended. And you were suspended because someone had complained?
10:46I was told that there'd been a whistleblowing complaint and I was also told, as I was leaving
10:53the building, the reason they were suspending me there and then while they investigated was to help
10:58me with my mental health. Gary Coston has posted a picture claiming that we are recruiting Muslims
11:07so the Muslims have their ideology spread. This is an insult to all my Muslim colleagues and unfair
11:14and bullying, as this is not the case. Sharing this post does nothing but spread hate towards
11:21our Muslim colleagues. I urge you all to look into this so we can leave the past behind us
11:28and move forward. Well, I look at what you shared, the screenshot,
11:35and I look at that complaint and the two bear no resemblance to each other whatsoever. I am
11:42struggling to match up those two things. It's as if the person who has complained is complaining
11:48about something completely different. I must confess to being bewildered as to how that
11:55complaint can stem from your screenshot. Who did this mystery figure, because you don't know who
12:01it is that complained? Still don't know to this day. This came like a bolt out of the blue. How
12:05did you feel when you got that, initially you were told you're in trouble? When I was in trouble,
12:12I didn't feel that it was that serious because all I was ever told as well was that I'd posted
12:17a WhatsApp post. That complaint itself, I didn't get until six months later at the day of my
12:27disciplinary. As in the the original complaint from the whistleblower, you didn't even get to
12:32see that complaint until the day of your hearing as it were? Correct. Right, so initially you thought
12:39well surely this can't be that serious, it's a really kind of frankly not that exciting screenshot.
12:45I thought I'd just get a slap on the wrist, maybe a written warning, something like that, so
12:51just being silly posting something that may be perceived to cause offence, but I didn't see it as
12:59that bad and I didn't see that I would get sacked for it. So you had the main official hearing
13:06actually didn't happen until September, so many months after, and the outcome of that hearing
13:13was summary dismissal and I've looked at the paperwork about that because you shared that
13:19with me and the reason that you were dismissed, and this is official, from Mighty, the contractor
13:26to the Home Office, was because you sharing that screenshot with a very small group of colleagues
13:31had, and I quote, the potential to cause offence and bring the company into disrepute. That's what
13:39they said? Correct. Was the company mentioned in your screenshot? No, it's never. Okay, I've looked
13:46at the further documentation and the company claims that the post was, and I'm quoting here,
13:52perceived as offensive and racist by others, in the plural. The problem was that it could have
14:00caused offence and that someone perceived that it was offensive, that's what they said, it was all
14:05about the perception? Correct, somebody else's perception. How many people were offended as far
14:11as you know? As far as I know, just a whistleblower, just one person, if they were actually offended.
14:17There's nothing out there that they were basically secretly sacking you for, it is all down to
14:22sharing this screenshot, for which they sacked somebody who had worked for this country, for the
14:29Home Office, via a contractor, deporting foreign criminals, which is work that we really, really
14:36need done well, they sacked you? Yes. Summarily. It's now a year, near enough a year, since all this
14:45happened. What has the last year been like for you?
14:54Nearly lost, sorry, nearly lost my marriage, I've lost my job,
15:02it's been hard. I had a decent car, which I've had to sell, to keep my head above water,
15:11I could have lost my home, it's just been difficult. I've managed to get a job in January,
15:19which I'll stay there for about a month, and then I've actually got a slightly better paid job,
15:28starting last month. What kind of job is that? In security, but only because the gentleman that was
15:37interviewed me, was willing to actually listen to me, my integrity and honesty,
15:45because I said exactly why I was being dismissed. But for that reason also, I've probably not been
15:54given half a dozen jobs, which I've applied for, because as soon as they see the post,
16:02everyone sort of goes, oh my god, and then doesn't want to hire me. So they don't want
16:08to touch you because you were dismissed for sharing a screenshot? Correct.
16:14How do you feel now about the future? It can only get better. Onwards and upwards,
16:22I've got to find some work, and whether it means I do this job that I'm with now for the next four
16:28or five years, because most jobs want five years employment history, then that's what I may do.
16:35But I don't want to go back to Mighty. All I want is my name cleared. How old are you? I'm 57.
16:46So no thoughts of packing it in and doing something a bit more relaxing? You want to
16:52work. You love work, I think. I like the challenge. So why have you decided to talk
16:59out about this then? What are you hoping to achieve? To clear my name. And I don't want
17:06compensation. It would be nice, but I just want to clear my name. So when I go for a job,
17:14I don't have to worry about them asking me why I lost, because I believe it was unfair dismissal.
17:19And I can ask again, how you felt this last year with these accusations
17:26about what you did? How has that made you feel?
17:32It's not my self-esteem. I did something in December, which I would never dream doing.
17:40I went to the doctors for depression and they gave me tablets.
17:49But as you can hear, I'm a stubborn northerner, and I refused to take the tablets in the end
17:56when I realised how long they would take to kick in. So I just fought it with the help of my wife.
18:05A spokeswoman from Mighty said, we don't comment on individual cases.
18:10Welcome back. Well, let's go straight over to our international editor, Isabel Oakeshott.
18:15Isabel, what a harrowing story. I think we have to point out, this is based,
18:20that his original post into that private WhatsApp group where he thought it was a group of friends,
18:27his colleagues at work, was he posted a tweet by Richard Tice, the deputy leader of Reform UK,
18:36who of course is your partner. But his only comment at the bottom of this, Richard posted,
18:43large Islamic network inside Home Office now suspended, appears to have been deliberately
18:49undermining government policy. How many other debts? Departments have similar problems,
18:56answers needed urgently, possible national security issues here. And another tweet beneath that,
19:04not linked to Richard Tice, a guy called Steve Edgington, said leaked doc show Home Office
19:10Islamic network say they aim to recruit Muslim staff to influence policy makers to support
19:17Muslim needs. So that was a worrying situation that, thank God, got onto the social media.
19:25Gary saw that, shared it with his friends, just put underneath it, oh, that was all it is. And yet,
19:32he was sacked on the basis that he tweeted something, or that he posted something entirely
19:41different, that he posted, that he wrote underneath that tweet to his mates,
19:47we are recruiting Muslims so the Muslims can have their ideology spread. He didn't tweet this. This
19:55guy is basically had his life ruined. Because some whistleblower said he was sort of Islamophobic,
20:03spreading racism and hatred and bullying when he didn't do that. And this is a man who served his
20:11country, who served this company mighty, quite bravely, obviously, just want to put it in his
20:18context, he was a former armourer in the Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers.
20:25And for this company, he used to volunteer for the difficult jobs,
20:32escorting dangerous migrants like murderers, rapists, drugs dealers, to high risk countries
20:37like Somalia, Afghanistan, Cameroon, and Sierra Leone. And he has been summarily dismissed a year
20:45ago now, of course, and more than that, for something he didn't do. This is outrageous.
20:53It's an extraordinary story, Kevin, I found it quite difficult just listening to him again.
20:59Because before me, when I interviewed him in London earlier this week, was a man who was almost
21:07a broken man. You can see that, you can see that, Isabel. He's a great big physical presence. He
21:13describes himself as a gentle giant. And actually, you can see him, if you look on YouTube,
21:18you can find a video featuring Gary, of that incident that he described in which he was
21:25caught up in a kind of passenger revolt of passengers who didn't want the deportation
21:32of a gang rapist. And poor old Gary had to handle this, you know, with all the passengers kicking
21:37off and saying, don't deport him and so on. And you can see him doing his job brilliantly. He has
21:45had no disciplinary complaints or anything throughout his years of fine service for our
21:52country. He left the armed forces with a medal for good service and long service. And yet this man's
22:00life has been ruined as a result of sharing a screenshot of some factual information, a news
22:09headline coupled with a comment by my partner Richard Tice. This has nothing to do with Richard
22:15Tice. He's a sort of bit part in this. This is about the hopeless lack of judgment on the part
22:24of bosses at Mighty, who, by the way, have come up with absolutely no excuse for what they've done.
22:29They simply have said, we can't comment on this. Well, I'd love to hear it if they had an excuse,
22:34if they had a proper reason. Complete hopeless lack of judgment by them. They're running scared
22:42of an anonymous individual who entirely baselessly... He lied. This individual, the whistleblower, lied.
22:50And they only had to, the company only had to check the WhatsApp group to see that that was a lie.
22:56Gary apologised for any offence caused, but his apologies were dismissed as irrelevant
23:04by Mighty bosses, who declared that what mattered was that sharing this image of the tweet
23:12could be perceived, as I'm quoting now, perceived as offensive and racist by others. That's it.
23:22Now, this feeds into this mania that modern Britain has, this sheer paranoia about
23:31the spectre of racism, the suggestion, even the, you know, the vague suggestion of racism or
23:37Islamophobia. Corporations, companies, organisations, the government, ministers, ministries,
23:46they just lose their minds. And this is just entirely wrong.
23:54They quite literally seem to have been incapable, too ignorant, too stupid or too frightened
24:02to exercise what we always talk about on talk, which is common sense. Is Gary a racist? No.
24:10There is no evidence of that. Is he anti-Islamic? No, there is no evidence of that. This is a man
24:17who went on holiday to Qatar, by the way. This is a man who volunteered repeatedly to escort
24:24foreign criminals to difficult, tough and, frankly, largely Muslim places. So there's
24:29no evidence of that either. Is there evidence of bullying? None whatsoever. Is there evidence
24:36that Gary Costin did a brilliant job year after year after year? Yes. So where is the case for
24:44dismissing such an individual? There isn't one. And what this says about our society
24:52is that certain communities are getting very, very, very special treatment and certain people
24:59in positions of power are too frightened or stupid to exercise discretion when people from
25:06those communities make entirely baseless complaints. And I feel so strongly about this story.
25:14Gary Costin did not deserve what happened to him. He is a highly skilled, experienced man
25:21in work that we need. We need people who are prepared to do that rough work of deporting
25:27foreign criminals. And yet he's had his life ruined. So I really hope that somehow or other,
25:34by bringing this story to light, first of all, we can help clear Gary's name. And secondly, that this
25:40puts him on a path to a better future, because this man did not deserve the treatment he was
25:46given by MITEI, in my opinion. Yeah, I agree with you. And I say that MITEI, which is terrified,
25:52I mean, you know, I'm sure that there are intelligent people who work at MITEI,
25:56intelligent people who investigated this complaint. They would have seen, in my view,
26:02that it was total rubbish. But they are terrified, or they were terrified. This is my speculation,
26:07my suggestion. But I think I'm right. They were terrified that if they didn't act like this
26:13unreasonably and sack Gary, that this whistleblower might go public and say MITEI is an
26:20Islamophobic company that doesn't treat Muslims well. That's what they're scared of. And apropos
26:28of nothing, don't forget this sort of unfolded, you know, this unfolds under various governments
26:33who are terrified of the same kind of thing. I just thought I'd play you the Deputy Prime
26:38Minister's latest post on social media. Have a look at this. Muslim Heritage Month is a great
26:46opportunity to recognise the immense contributions Muslims have made and continue to make to British
26:52society. I want to thank the Muslim Women's Network UK for leading on this important work.
27:00Muslims have been a part of Britain for centuries, from the early sailors and traders of Assam,
27:06Bengal and Yemen, to the growing port cities communities of East London, Liverpool and
27:12South Shields in the early 20th century. And completely coincidentally, Angela Rayner
27:20represents the constituency of Ashton-under-Lyne up in the north, where many, many of her constituents
27:30are Muslims. And without the Muslim vote, she would lose her seat. And without the Muslim vote,
27:37it's very unlikely that Labour would retain, stay being the government after the next election.
27:43This is the culture that is unfolding. It is this terror of the noise the Muslim community might
27:50make if we don't bow down to them in every single way. And when I say Muslim community,
27:55I don't mean all of them. I mean the noisy extremists. You know what I'm talking about.
28:00This is a really bad cultural problem we've got here. I think that's right, Kevin. I think it's
28:05really important to say that no one on talk, least of all me, because I literally spend a
28:11great deal of time in a wonderful Muslim country. No one on talk radio has a problem with Muslims.
28:19No one is Islamophobic. No one doesn't want to honour what Muslims contribute to our society
28:27in the UK. But what we cannot have is contractors for the Home Office, running scared of a
28:35single individual who anonymously makes a baseless complaint. And for that, someone gets
28:41hung out to dry. That can't be right. And you said what they were afraid of would be this individual
28:47going public. Well, they shouldn't have been afraid of that. Because this individual,
28:51this anonymous person... He was lying. He was lying. He or she was lying.
28:57He or she had misunderstood. They had nothing to complain about. So companies have got to
29:02find a backbone on this stuff. We need to know who we are. We have our identity.
29:08We have our values. And they should not include kind of persecuting people for sharing entirely
29:15factual stuff, which may have been relevant to the work that he was doing.
29:20Yeah, too much. We're in the age of the accusation now. And too many corporations,
29:24organisations, government, ministries. If somebody accuses someone of racism or Islamophobia,
29:30that's good enough. You're finished. No investigation. They're too terrified of the
29:34whole spectre of the words racism and Islamophobia. And that is what has cost Gary his job,
29:44his confidence, almost cost him his marriage. I feel very, very sorry for the guy. I hope he
29:49rebuilds his life properly. And, you know, this sort of nonsense just has to stop.