I often wondered what happened if you accidentally tick the “Yes I have committed genocide” box on the strange form you’re asked to fill in when travelling to the US.

For the uninitiated, as part of the visa-waiver process to fly from the UK to the US you have to fill in your details and answer a series of increasingly harrowing questions, the apex of which is being asked to respond yes or no to:

Do you seek to engage in or have you ever engaged in terrorist activities, espionage, sabotage, or genocide?

Of course it turns out that inadvertently ticking the yes box has happened more than once so there’s an answer. It seems to be more along the lines of subjecting you to hefty delays, cancellation and expensive bureaucratic hoops to jump through rather than getting thrown in jail. I’m sure it’s still annoying though.

Stories abound.

First there’s Mandie who encountered an obstacle in working through her bucket-list.

Cancer patient Mandie Stevenson had to postpone a bucket list trip to New York after she accidentally labelled herself a terrorist on her visa waiver form.

Then a prospective Christmas vacation was ruined for an older gentleman:

A Scottish couple’s festive holiday plans are in disarray after a 70-year-old grandfather accidentally declared himself a terrorist on a crucial visa form.

He’s now afraid he’ll never be let in.

“They looked up my Esta number and said ‘you’re a terrorist’. I told them that I was 70 years old and I don’t even recognise what that means.”

Finally for now we have someone at the other end of the age spectrum.

A three-month old baby was summoned to the US embassy in London for an interview after his grandfather mistakenly identified him as a terrorist.

But was it truly a mistake? Perhaps only mostly.

“He’s obviously never engaged in genocide, or espionage, but he has sabotaged quite a few nappies in his time, though I didn’t tell them that at the US embassy.”

volunteered his grandfather.