![\"Former](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/0023d823-614.jpg\"\/)
\nMark Hehir met Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch and shadow minister for justice Kieran Mullan<\/p>\n
A passenger who had her necklace stolen on a London bus has said the Irish bus driver who retrieved it “didn’t deserve” to be sacked.<\/p>\n
Mark Hehir, 62, who is originally from Limerick, 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
Ms Kaszas, 46, said that she felt “so guilty” after learning Mr Hehir had lost his job as a result of confronting the thief.<\/p>\n
She said: “When 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.<\/p>\n
“I was like, ‘Why 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.”<\/p>\n
But after Mr Hehir gave the necklace back to Ms Kaszas, the thief returned to the bus.<\/p>\n
Ms Kaszas said: “The 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.<\/p>\n
“I 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
“I 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.”<\/p>\n
\nMark Hehir met Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch and shadow minister for justice Kieran Mullan<\/p>\n
Asked for her reaction to hearing Mr Hehir had been sacked by Metroline, Ms Kaszas said: “I think it was unjust. I don\u2019t think (Mr Hehir) deserved that.<\/p>\n
“If he doesn\u2019t do what he did, anything could have happened to me.<\/p>\n
“I felt so guilty. I felt that it was my fault – I caused all this.”<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, UK Justice Secretary David Lammy told the House of Commons yesterday that Mr Hehir “is of course a hero and deserves our support”.<\/p>\n
He added: “I\u2019m following this case very closely.”<\/p>\n
More than 125,000 people have signed a petition in support of Mr 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 Mr Hehir has raised more than \u00a328,000.<\/p>\n
Earlier yesterday, Mr Hehir was invited into parliament by shadow justice minister Kieran Mullan.<\/p>\n
Mr Mullan said: “I think Metroline need to come out and apologise, Mark deserves an apology, it\u2019s quite clear they\u2019ve gotten this wrong.”<\/p>\n
Last week, an employment tribunal found that on 25 June 2024 Mr Hehir was driving the 206 bus, which runs between Wembley and Maida Vale in northwest 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
Mr Hehir then restrained the thief on the pavement until police arrived.<\/p>\n
Both men were arrested, however Mr Hehir was told he would face no further police action.<\/p>\n
A police case review said: “The claimant had used force which was proportionate and necessary in the circumstances in the defence of himself and the female passenger.”<\/p>\n
A Metroline spokesperson said: “The tribunal has upheld the dismissal as fair.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A passenger who had her necklace stolen on a London bus has said the Irish bus driver who…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":280030,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":{"0":"post-280029","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/280029","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=280029"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/280029\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/280030"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=280029"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=280029"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=280029"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}