If you want to get stopped at Gatwick, wear the wrong clothes. But bizarre chicken costumes are just fine, apparently.

A new race monitor has been looking at the way Britain's Immigration Officers deal with the thousands of people who arrive each day in the UK.

She found staff handled race issues perfectly but were more likely to be prejudiced if a traveller was wearing the "wrong clothes".

So, as an experiment in clothes-relations I was dispatched to Gatwick to try my luck in three guises.

Persona A was Charles Kitchen, a maths teacher from Utah, Persona B was Chaz Mitchen, a wide-boy from Ibiza and Persona C was Charles the Chunky Chicken, a grown man in a hen suit.

Mr Kitchen had no problems with his Denholm Elliot sartorial elegance.

Hotel receptionists smiled at him, off-duty Customs men gave him nothing but a cursory glance and BAA security didn't bat an eyelid as he strolled through the airport with his shoulder bag.

Chaz, on the other hand, drew a significant amount of flak.

In too tight football shirt and shorts, smoking a cigarette and with a backwards facing baseball cap, he was obviously a middle- aged man with something to hide other than his beer belly.

Air hostesses looked down their elegant noses, shop assistants were po-faced and security tailed him.

Charles the Chunky Chicken, on the other wing, just made people laugh.

Mary Coussey, a Cambridge academic employed by the immigration department, was asked to look at the way immigration officers discriminated against some people on ethnic grounds.

She said: "I did not see any indication that a passenger's colour was the trigger for further checks.

"But immigration and airside officers do take appearance and demeanour into account.

"There is a combination of factors which do not quite add up that make passengers stand out.

"Examples given to me suggested that subtle mistakes in dress, such as wearing baseball caps in a too-young manner or a group of people in similar, too-new clothes, make people a target."

She studied the departments at Gatwick, Heathrow and Stansted before publishing her findings.

And judging by my own experiences, she was right.

I will never wear my baseball cap in a too-young manner again.

But, I fooled the authorities with one disguise.

Charles Kitchen, the mathematics teacher, came through the airport with a calculator, slide rule, log table and protractor in his bag.

Clearly they were not looking for weapons of maths instruction.