{"id":279793,"date":"2026-02-04T06:22:07","date_gmt":"2026-02-04T06:22:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/279793\/"},"modified":"2026-02-04T06:22:07","modified_gmt":"2026-02-04T06:22:07","slug":"irish-bus-driver-who-chased-necklace-thief-is-hero-says-british-justice-minister-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/279793\/","title":{"rendered":"Irish bus driver who chased necklace thief is hero, says British justice minister \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

A passenger whose necklace was stolen on a London<\/a> bus has said the bus driver who retrieved it \u201cdidn\u2019t deserve\u201d to be sacked.<\/p>\n

Mark Hehir, 62, originally from Limerick<\/a>, was fired by Metroline after he chased down a thief who had stolen the jewellery belonging to one of his passengers, Katalin Kaszas.<\/p>\n

British justice minister David Lammy told the House of Commons on Tuesday how Hehir \u201cis of course a hero and deserves our support\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m following this case very closely,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Speaking to Press Association, Kaszas (46) said she felt \u201cso guilty\u201d after learning Hehir had lost his job as a result of confronting the thief.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I was getting on the bus, a young man was getting off on the front door. He was running past me, I thought he was going to push me off the bus. He just grabbed my necklace and ran with it,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was like, \u2018Why is he there, where is my necklace? Oh damn\u2019. So that\u2019s when I realised what just happened. I saw Mark running out, running after the guy.\u201d<\/p>\n

But after Hehir gave the necklace back to Kaszas, the thief returned to the bus.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe guy was coming up\u2026 I was like \u2018No, no, no, stay away from me, I don\u2019t want to do anything with you\u2019. He looked very, very shifty, I did not feel comfortable at all,\u201c Kaszas said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI would say I even felt threatened, so I was backing away, and that\u2019s when Mark realised that something is not right here and he stepped in.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know where I was in my mind, I saw a punch flying, a guy hitting the floor, there was some blood and then I started to call the police.\u201d<\/p>\n

Asked for her reaction to hearing Hehir had been sacked by Metroline, Kaszas said: \u201cI think it was unjust. I don\u2019t think [Hehir] deserved that.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf he doesn\u2019t do what he did, anything could have happened to me.<\/p>\n

\u201cI felt so guilty. I felt that it was my fault \u2013 I caused all this.\u201d<\/p>\n

More than 125,000 people have signed a petition in support Hehir, which was launched after an employment tribunal upheld Metroline\u2019s decision to sack the bus driver.<\/p>\n

In another sign of public support for the former bus driver, a GoFundMe page for Hehir has raised more than \u00a328,000 (\u20ac32,500).<\/p>\n

Earlier on Tuesday, Hehir, who now lives in northwest London, was invited into parliament by shadow justice minister Kieran Mullan.<\/p>\n

Mullan told PA: \u201cI think Metroline need to come out and apologise, Mark deserves an apology, it\u2019s quite clear they\u2019ve gotten this wrong\u201d.<\/p>\n

Last week, Press Association reported from the findings of an employment tribunal which found that on June 25, 2024, Hehir was driving the 206 bus, which runs between Wembley and Maida Vale, north-west London.<\/p>\n

The tribunal was told the bus driver then responded in self-defence to the thief and hit the man once, knocking him unconscious.<\/p>\n

Hehir then restrained the thief on the pavement until police arrived.<\/p>\n

Both men were arrested, although Hehir was told he would face no further police action.<\/p>\n

A police case review said: \u201cThe claimant had used force which was proportionate and necessary in the circumstances in the defence of himself and the female passenger.\u201d<\/p>\n

A Metroline spokesperson said: \u201cThe tribunal has upheld the dismissal as fair.\u201d – Press Association<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A passenger whose necklace was stolen on a London bus has said the bus driver who retrieved it…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":279794,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,1396,99,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":{"0":"post-279793","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-limerick","10":"tag-london","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-top-news","13":"tag-top-stories","14":"tag-topnews","15":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/279793","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=279793"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/279793\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/279794"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=279793"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=279793"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=279793"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}