Brandon To: A country that sacks heroes will never beat crime

Brandon To is a Politics graduate from UCL and a Hong Kong BN(O) immigrant settled in Harrow

When Mark Hehir, a London bus driver, helped chase down a thief who had just snatched a passenger’s necklace, he probably assumed he was doing the right thing.

He was wrong. At least according to modern Britain.

Instead of thanks, Hehir was sacked by Metroline. His crime? “Excessive force” while stopping a fleeing robber.

Let’s be clear about what this means: Stopping a thief is now, apparently, too much.

So what is acceptable? A polite request? A strongly worded suggestion? Perhaps a hymn, sung gently, in the hope that divine intervention persuades the criminal to hand the necklace back?

This case would be funny if it weren’t so revealing.

A new chilling message is now being sent to the public: do not intervene. If you help, you may be punished. If you step in, you may lose your job. If you act decisively, you may be accused of doing more harm than the criminal himself.

Is it any wonder that bystanders look away?

TfL staff are told not to challenge fare evaders. Passers-by hesitate before helping victims. Even the police, in countless videos circulating online, appear reluctant to chase criminals, paralysed by the fear of complaints, and accusations that have little to do with justice.

Put it frankly, this is cowardice, dressed up as “compassion”.

Behind it lies a justice culture warped by liberal and “woke” ideology. In this worldview, criminals are endlessly contextualised, even sympathised with, as it’s always the “system” that failed them.

But who is there to sympathise with the victim? Or in this case, the hero who stood for them?

And heaven forbid if identity politics can be dragged into it. Suddenly, the act of stopping a thief is no longer about theft at all, but about race, systems, or abstract theories dreamed up in universities, far from the bus stop where the crime actually happened.

Against this backdrop, Kieran Mullan, the Shadow Justice Secretary, deserves credit for speaking up and standing with Mark Hehir. This is precisely what Conservatives should be doing — drawing a clear moral line and refusing to apologise for it.

But words are not enough.

If Conservatives are serious about restoring order, and about shedding the legacy of a government that was too weak and overly liberal on crime, then we must go further and be explicit about protection.

We should introduce clear legal safeguards for citizens who intervene, in good faith, to stop crime. If someone acts to prevent theft or violence, they should not later discover that the real punishment comes from their employer or a compliance department.

Employers who sack staff for intervening should be required to publicly justify their decision. Where dismissal occurs, it should be treated as a no-fault dismissal, with enhanced compensation. And if a company refuses to reinstate or explain itself, the state should step in. Not to micromanage, but to send a message: those who stand up for public order will never be abandoned.

This is how culture changes. Not through slogans, but through real actions.

At this point, defenders of the status quo raise a familiar objection: people don’t intervene because it’s dangerous. Criminals might be armed. It’s safer to do nothing.

But this argument collapses the moment one looks at reality.

Take the recently viral footage of thieves smashing a jewellery shop in Richmond in broad daylight. Dozens of people stood nearby. Not one intervened. Not one shouted. Not one tried to distract or deter. Most simply filmed.

I’m not suggesting reckless heroics. But shouting, calling the police, or trying to throw things at the thieves from a safe distance? Yes, they may not be immediately helpful, but at least we created pressure that might urge them to leave earlier. At least we tried hard, and fulfilled our civic responsibility.

The problem is not fear of weapons. The problem is a culture that has trained people to believe that any involvement is dangerous. That culture exists because, time and again, the heroes are punished.

Mark Hehir’s case lays this bare.

He should not be unemployed. He should be thanked. Better still, he should be held up as an example of civic responsibility, of what a noble Britishman should be like.

But of course, we won’t see a “good citizen” award from City Hall. Under a mayor like Sadiq Khan, we might have to be grateful that he’s not arresting Mark Hehir for “systematic injustice “, or whatever new jargons he and his team invented.

And Conservatives should not miss the moment.

This case exposes exactly what happens when a country becomes more afraid of offending criminals than protecting citizens. If stopping a thief is now “excessive”, then the system itself has become excessive. Excessive in weakness, and excessive in its contempt for common sense.

Britain deserves better. And Mark Hehir deserved a medal, not a dismissal.