A five-year-old girl had her passport form rejected when an official said the bare shoulders on her photograph could offend Muslims. The post office assistant stunned Hannah Edwards's parents by claiming the skin exposed by her daughter's halter-neck dress would not be accepted by the Passport Office as it might prove unacceptable in a Muslim country.
The incident happened when Jane and Martin Edwards took the picture, which was taken in a photo-booth, to a post office in the Sheffield area along with the completed form for checking ahead of a family holiday in the South of France.
The counter clerk told them she was aware of at least two other cases where applications had been rejected because a person's shoulders were not covered in their photo.
Mrs Edwards, a GP in Sheffield, had to rush around for two hours getting new pictures taken and countersigned.
'I was incensed,' she said yesterday. 'I went back home and checked the form.
'Nowhere did it say anything about covering up shoulders. If it had, I would have done so, but it all seems so unnecessary.
'This is quite ridiculous, I followed the instructions on the passport form to the letter and it was still rejected. It is just officialdom pandering to political correctness.
'It is a total over-reaction. How can the shoulders of a five-year-old girl offend anyone?
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