London Bus Driver Sacked After Chasing and KO’ing Thief Who Stole From Passenger

A hero bus driver was sacked after he chased down and knocked out a thief who stole a passenger’s necklace.

Mark Hehir was driving the 206 bus between Wembley and Maida Vale when a man boarded the bus, snatched a necklace from around a female passenger’s neck and ran off.

Mark, who worked for Metroline for two years, jumped off the bus, chased the man down and retrieved the necklace.

Give that man a raise, right?

Well unfortunately, because he left the bus engine on while chasing after the man, Mark faced a disciplinary hearing where he was told he brought the company into ‘disrepute’.

The thief then reappeared and ‘threw a punch’ at Mark, who responded by sparking him out with a single punch of his own.

He dragged the man to the pavement and restrained him for almost ‘half an hour’ until police got there.

Both men were arrested and Mark was eventually released and told he would face no further police action. However, the day after the incident, the bus driver was suspended and told to attend an investigation.

At a disciplinary hearing, he was accused of ‘bringing the company into disrepute by physically assaulting a passenger’ and that he also ‘failed to protect his and his passengers’ safety by leaving the bus unattended with engine running and chasing an assailant’.

Mark told the hearing that ‘he had acted instinctively in running after the (man)’ and that he had left the doors open and the handbrake on.

Credit to the Metropolitan Police –  they defended Mark, saying ‘the claimant had used force which was proportionate and necessary in the circumstances in the defence of himself and the female passenger’.

The hearing questioned whether the man returned to the bus to ‘shake hands and apologise to the female passenger and the claimant’, and also debated over who threw the first punch.

Alina Gioroc, an operations manager who heard the disciplinary case, told the tribunal that she believed ‘the (man) returned towards the bus with the clear intention to apologise and shake hands with the female passenger’.

She added: ‘When the (man) intended to shake hands with the claimant, the claimant pushed the (man) away rather than stepping away himself, and that the (man) had not been aggressive until this point.’

She also found the restraining of the man for almost half an hour to be an ‘excessive use of force and disproportionate’.

In the end, the tribunal in Watford upheld Mark Hehir’s dismissal and said ‘that the genuine belief of the disciplinary and appeal managers that the claimant was guilty of gross misconduct was held on reasonable grounds and was within the band of reasonable responses open to an employer in the circumstances’.

Ironically, I think firing him has brought the company into disrepute, rather than him chasing down a thief and punching him in (allegedly) self-defence.

I guess he should have just ignored the situation completely and let the thief run away with the woman’s necklace? I’m sure next time he will.

Hope you find a new job soon, Mark. No doubt there’ll be plenty of employers out there who would appreciate a man like you on the books.

For the bus driver who nearly decapitated passengers after crashing into a low bridge in Manchester, click HERE.