In a nation where self-defense is apparently a fireable offense, Mark Hehir, a dedicated London bus driver, has been hailed as a hero by the public but sacked by his employer for daring to chase down a thief who snatched a passenger’s necklace.
This absurdity highlights how the UK’s bureaucratic overlords prioritize corporate protocols over actual justice, leaving ordinary citizens vulnerable to rampant crime while the establishment looks the other way.
Hehir’s act of bravery, which even the police deemed “proportionate and necessary,” has sparked petitions, fundraisers, and widespread fury online. But in today’s Britain, where globalist policies have eroded basic freedoms, punishing the good guys seems to be the new normal—echoing a broader decline that sees literal convicted terrorists eyeing political power while heroes like Hehir get the boot.
A thief stole a necklace
— Basil the Great (@BasilTheGreat) January 30, 2026
A bus driver caught the thief and got the necklace back
British Police arrested the Bus Driver and he got sacked.
The UK isn't a real place at this point pic.twitter.com/I0uI0mJgQH
The incident unfolded on June 25, 2024, aboard the 206 bus route in northwest London. A man boarded, shoved past a female passenger, and ripped a necklace from her neck before fleeing. Hehir, 62, didn’t hesitate—he pursued the thief for about 200 meters, retrieved the jewelry after a scuffle, and returned it to the distressed woman.
But the story didn’t end there. The thief returned to the bus, allegedly to “apologize” according to Metroline, the bus company. Hehir insists the man threw the first punch, prompting him to retaliate in self-defense and restrain the assailant until police arrived. Both were arrested, but authorities quickly cleared Hehir, with a detective noting the force used was justified “in the defence of himself and the female passenger.”
Metroline saw it differently. They fired Hehir for gross misconduct, accusing him of assault, leaving the bus unattended, and bringing the company into disrepute. An employment tribunal upheld the decision, claiming it fell within a “band of reasonable responses” for an employer. Never mind that Hehir had put himself in harm’s way to protect others.
Mark Hehir was a bus driver in London who chased down a man who stole a passenger's necklace.
— Robert Jenrick (@RobertJenrick) January 29, 2026
He’s a hero. But guess what? The bus company @metroline sacked him.
?They said the thief was a “customer”. Inexplicably a tribunal upheld their decision.
It’s no wonder we live… pic.twitter.com/tkJnpcbaXq
Public backlash has been swift and fierce. A petition demanding his reinstatement has garnered over 5,000 signatures, while thousands of pounds have been raised in support. On X, users decried the ruling as emblematic of “anarcho-tyranny,” where criminals roam free but citizens are penalized for stepping up.
The exact opposite happens in other countries:
???? Hero Bus Driver Comparison
— Rory Geoghegan (@rorygeo) January 29, 2026
?? #London: Get the sack ?
?? #Singapore: Get an award ?
?? #Korea: Get an award ?
Coincidentally, Metroline, who sacked Mark Hehir, is owned by Comfortdelgro based in Singapore. https://t.co/l43xq4jGxU pic.twitter.com/dzxuMxqI6K
Hehir himself called into LBC radio to set the record straight. “I’m the actual bus driver,” he told host Tom Swarbrick, explaining how the thief came back aggressive, not apologetic. “He went to throw a left punch and I met him with a right punch and clearly he went down.”
? Former Metropolitan Police Detective, Peter Bleksley, brands Mark Hehir a "hero" after he chased down and knocked out a thief who stole a passenger's necklace.
— Talk (@TalkTV) January 29, 2026
The bus driver has been sacked despite acting in self-defence.@TVKev | @PeterBleksley pic.twitter.com/vw0wkeMaHw
This case isn’t isolated. It fits a disturbing pattern in the UK, where the establishment’s obsession with “protocols” and political correctness tramples on individual rights. Under Labour’s watch, crime surges unchecked, fueled by open borders and soft-on-crime policies that echo the globalist agenda eroding Western societies.
Tie this to the latest outrage: a convicted terrorist running for office in the UK’s second city Birmingham. Shahid Butt, sentenced to five years in Yemen for plotting bombings against British targets and with a history of violent offenses in the UK, is now campaigning on a pro-Gaza platform in a Muslim-majority ward. He dismisses his conviction as a setup, but facts don’t lie.
Sharon Osbourne, widow of rock legend Ozzy, fired back on social media: “This has nothing to do with racism. I think I’m gonna move to Birmingham and put my name down for the ballot to be on the council. I’m serious.” Supporters cheered her on, with comments like “Please do, Sharon. Gosh, it’s just unbelievable that someone like him can stand. It’s just so demoralising. What is this country coming to?”
This juxtaposition is damning. While a bus driver gets sacked for defending a victim, a man with terrorist ties can vie for public office, backed by pro-Gaza activists. It’s the same system that welcomes extremists like Alaa Abd el-Fattah—who praised Osama bin Laden—while jailing Brits for social media posts criticizing immigration.
Such hypocrisy exposes the rot: a two-tier justice system where mass migration and woke ideologies prioritize outsiders over natives, stifling freedom and safety. Hehir’s sacking isn’t just a corporate blunder—it’s a symptom of a nation surrendering to chaos.
Brits deserve better than a government that handcuffs heroes while handing platforms to radicals.
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This is all pretty normal.
It’s normal for the police to arrest both sides in the case of a fight, because when they arrive, they don’t happen to have God-like abilities to instantly know what happened, so they arrest all the fighters, ask questions to everybody, and figure out the facts in the police station. In this case, once they figured that the bus driver did nothing wrong, they let him go.
It’s also normal for companies to fire employees at the first sign of trouble as a knee-jerk reaction. And the law gives them an awful lot of freedom to do that sort of thing. The only argument that might work is one of necessity: “It was my obligation as a citizen/UK resident to try to stop crime if I was able to.” But since doing something is potentially dangerous, and doing nothing never gets punished, companies and judges default to punishing have-a-go-heroes.
I’m not saying I approve of this, just that it’s what happens. My opinion is that crime is best deterred when everybody has clear ideas of what is the nearest authority representative, and the nearest authority representative is always willing to do their best to stop crime and escalate to higher authority. In a bus, the authority representative is the bus driver. Telling him to go home while everybody sorts out the facts is reasonable. Deciding afterwards that he should not have behaved like the authority representative that he was is the bus company saying they don’t give a flying F about crime in buses, but then, that isn’t exactly news.
Ah, and it’s also normal of pundits and influencers to blame the government about the actions of a private company and/or judges, that are meant to be independent from government. Once again, we are sadly lacking of an authority representative willing and able to respond to pundits and influencers with something more rotund than words, in spite that they keep stealing the truth from us each and every day, so their crimes go unpunished.
This case proves how the USA is in leadership. Our weak governors and city officials — usually Democrats — prefer to protect criminals than law abiding citizens. Why? They are dependent on government handouts, thus vote Dem. The UK is just copying us.