Comment by shimon

This seems excessively harsh. I didn't see the author say anything about expecting special treatment or rejecting the value of a standardized work visa system. As far as I can tell, she made a number of reasonable assumptions that someone not familiar with the details of UK travel law might make.

Secondly, her intent was to do something beneficial in the country. Whatever your views on on web animation, she was part of an event that brought visitors, economic activity, and tax revenues to the country. Conceivably, the border control agency could have satisfied their rules and not denied their country the benefits of her visit -- by simply charging her a fee for last-minute changes to her visa terms. That would serve as a lesson and deterrent, without subjecting a person who didn't have any malicious intent to a long detention.

And don't kid yourself about lying. Lying here doesn't mean "would a fair court judge your statements as true", it means "did the particular agent who interviewed you think you might be lying". There is tremendous discretion for the officers involved, and they get it wrong sometimes. If you think that never happens, you'll support naive systems that have pretty high rates of injustice.