Debate on Youtube train eviction shows that issue isn’t black and white

IT WAS a scene commuters across the country are familiar with. A teenager hurls abuse at a conductor after being challenged over his ticket, while other passengers shift uneasily in their seats.

On the 9.33pm train from Edinburgh to Perth last Friday, however, not everyone was prepared to wait passively for the authorities to sort the problem out. As 19-year-old student Sam Main engaged in a stand-off and the train sat idle at Linlithgow station, finance manager Alan Pollock decided it was time for action.

Unimpressed by the conductor’s attempts to resolve the situation, the 35-year-old stepped in to eject the apparent ticket evader from the carriage, before physically manoeuvring him on to the platform. The student struggled, trying to get back on board, but was eventually bundled off.

Job done, Pollock was greeted with a round of applause from other travellers as the train started moving again.

And that – doubtless – would have been that if IT teacher Ian Helms hadn’t filmed the whole incident on his mobile phone.

After it was uploaded on to YouTube, the footage went viral – by this weekend it had racked up two million views. Soon, Pollock had taken on cult status. Now known universally as “the Big Man” – a name that takes its inspiration not only from his girth, but from a Chewin’ the Fat sketch in which a tough male Glaswegian sorts out everyone’s problems by violent means – he has split public opinion down the middle. Some hail him as the kind of have-a-go-hero Scotland needs. Others see him as a bully whose reaction was disproportionate to the circumstances.

“Given that I commute quite a lot and am often confronted by people behaving in ways that are quite unpleasant to other people, and that most people look at their newspapers and very rarely do they remonstrate with the people concerned, I think what he did was entirely understandable,” says sociologist Professor Frank Furedi. Not everyone agreed, especially when more details about the incident emerged.

Many commentators on both sides of the fence predicted that Pollock, however well-intentioned, would soon find himself at the centre of a police inquiry, with Main being seen as “the victim”. And so it came to pass. Soon Main – a student from Heriot-Watt University – was being interviewed on TV, sporting a nasty cut to his head and insisting he had indeed bought a ticket. Revealing he had made a complaint against Pollock, he said his injuries had been sustained when he was physically thrown on to the platform.

Asked why he had attempted to reboard the train after his first ejection, he said he was a diabetic and his bag containing insulin was still on board. “This man should be charged and have his day in court,” Main’s father Lenny said. “He had no right to do what he did.”

The incident – which was on one level quite quotidian – has captured the public imagination. Talked about on virtually every chat show, it was the burning issue of the week because it touched on some of the most contentious social and legal issues of our time. The two and a half minutes of footage highlights once again the problem of youth behaviour; the dilemma over whether or not to intervene in the face of such disorder; and the difficulty of striking a balance between taking a stand against antisocial behaviour and committing a crime.

It also raises challenging questions about the filming and subsequent publicising of such incidents; like two other recent outbursts involving passengers spewing racist abuse at fellow travellers on public transport, the event has taken on an added significance as a result of being widely viewed. But does the trend for putting such footage on YouTube provide a valuable insight into human behaviour, or merely allow minor skirmishes to be blown out of all proportion?

Now the Crown Office finds itself between a rock and a hard place: it has to take a decision on whether or not to pursue Pollock, aware the whole country is watching and that, whichever decision it makes, there will be those who vehemently disagree.

If it decides to take no action against “the Big Man” it might be seen to be condoning acts of vigilantism, but if Pollock goes to court (particularly if Main does not) then the message clearly is: “Don’t get involved.” At a time when the UK government is talking up the benefits of a “Big Society”, it seems, the fracas on the train goes to the heart of what it means to be a good citizen.

Although have-a-go-heroes hit the headlines from time to time, the reluctance of most passers-by to get involved in incidents they witness has been established since the Sixties when psychologists coined the term the “bystander effect”. This term refers to the tendency of those who see an emergency situation to walk on by because they convince themselves help is not needed or believe that others, who are better qualified, will take the responsibility for providing it. The more people who witness such an event, the less likelihood there is of anyone intervening.

This was thrown into sharp relief during the riots in English cities during the summer, where even the police stood back and allowed young people to throw rocks and loot shops unchallenged.

Recent incidents in which those who have intervened have lost their lives may also discourage people from taking action. In 2005, Richard Whelan was fatally stabbed on the top deck of a London bus after asking a stranger to stop throwing chips at his girlfriend. Just last month, 76-year-old James Simpson was killed as he tried to stop thieves stealing his Land Rover Discovery from outside his Larkhall home. And there has been a spate of cases in which those who have intervened have found themselves in trouble. In 2008, retired police inspector Paul Lawson was arrested after he remonstrated with youths who threatened to kill him and smash up his car. He was released on bail and had to wait several weeks before being told no action as being taken against him.

The following year, businessman Munir Hussain was sentenced to 30 months in prison after attacking a burglar who had raided his home, before the Court of Appeal reduced it to a one-year suspended sentence. In the wake of the Hussain case, David Cameron said he wanted to strengthen the law to allow householders to protect their properties. While at present they are allowed only to use “reasonable force”, he said that in future they would only face prosecution for using “grossly disproportionate” force.

According to legal experts, however, the situation on the 9.33pm train, was more complicated than a house burglary or a street mugging, because – although many may sympathise with the passengers’ frustration at the delay – it is difficult to see what physical threat was posed by the ticket evader and because, it seems, the authorities had already been alerted.

“The general principle is that criminal behaviour is a matter for the authorities such as the police or the British Transport Police,” says solicitor-advocate Gerry Brown, of Livingstone Brown. “Where a civilian does interfere, there has to be moral certainty – in other words, he has to be absolutely certain a crime is being committed and he has to intervene in a proportionate way, taking into account the scale of the crime being committed.”

Main, from Falkirk, claims he had bought a ticket (and been given the wrong one) so no ticket evasion took place, but he is clearly heard swearing at the conductor which could potentially constitute a breach of the peace. However, on the footage that appeared on YouTube, he makes no threats of physical violence to the conductors or other passengers.

The majority of people who have viewed the clip appear to believe that – in an ideal world – the conductor would have dealt more effectively with the situation himself.

Last week, the British Transport Police said: “While we welcome the public’s support of our zero-tolerance stance on antisocial behaviour, our staff are trained in conflict management and we do not expect members of the public to take matters into their own hands.”

It is understood the conductor had a range of options available to him, including asking Main to provide means of ID and, then issuing a ticket irregularity – a ticket form which would have allowed him to be billed later, or requesting assistance from British Transport Police.

However, the footage shows the inspector, who is said to be co-operating with inquiries, repeating: “I’ll sit here all night, pal. I’m being paid for this, but they [the passengers] will start moaning.” This, for some, seems to sum up society’s impotence.

“It’s particularly sad the conductor was relatively ineffectual in sorting it out, which you would hope was the conductor’s job,” says Furedi. “I’ve seen conductors on trains and they can be very intimidated and not really secure and don’t feel they have the authority. They aren’t sure if the rest of the train will back them up.”

In the footage, it is clear Pollock only intervenes when it becomes obvious Main won’t move and, even then, he is heard asking the conductor if he wants help before he acts.

But some have argued that the physical force he uses to man-handle to teenager off the train is excessive. Indeed, one woman on the train expresses concern. “There’s no need for that,” she says.

“The ticket conductor was being an arse, the teenager was being an arse, but being a cheeky sod doesn’t justify violence,” says on online commentator.

“You have to ask yourself if he would have been so proactive if the alleged ticket evader had been as big or bigger than him,” adds another, drawing attention to the fact that the student was much shorter and more slight in build.

Even the crime-busting group The Guardian Angels, while commending Pollok’s public-spiritedness, believes he might be in need of some training when it comes to conflict resolution.

Pollock, a father-of-three, who works in Edinburgh for the blue chip investment management company BlackRock, has refused to talk about his moment of bravado, but his father Jim, a retired accountant, has backed his action, saying: “He’s not impulsive, but the situation was getting out of hand.”

And Furedi agrees: “If I was him I would organise a support campaign – it’s important that when people don’t get charged for real crimes and courts tend to ignore real instances of anti-social behaviour, the idea that you would take someone like him to court seems utterly silly.”

While the British Transport Police continue their inquiries, both families seem to be marshalling support for their cause. Sam Main’s Facebook page is full of supportive comments such as “we are all in your corner, Sam”, while the phrase “Team Sam” has appeared on his father Lenny’s.

Main’s case is that he was advised it would be cheaper to buy two singles for his journey, but he was given two from Polmont to Edinburgh Park as opposed to one going in either direction. He also maintains that – though he had been celebrating with a few drinks after his exams – his diabetes may have affected the way he reacted to the conductor.

Pollock is keeping a low profile, but his father portrays him as a mild-mannered man pushed to the limit. In the end, the Crown Office will have to decide not only if an offence has been committed by Pollock, but whether, given the circumstances, it would be in the public interest to prosecute.

Unedifying though this has been, some believe it may serve a positive social purpose. “If it is in both the interests of justice and the public interest, the Crown Office might take the view that this is a good case to put before the courts and see if they can get an opinion as to the extent of public involvement in misbehaviour,” says Brown.

Others hope it will act as some kind of catalyst, persuading people to take a greater stand against low-level public disorder. “I know a lot of people when they see children misbehaving are scared to intervene [in case they get into trouble] – that’s how far things have gone,” says Furedi.

“We don’t value and affirm people’s right to contain the behaviour of youths who are out of control or whose behaviour is potentially harmful to others. I think that if society was more rigorous in relation to this a lot of young kids would behave far better and you wouldn’t get all this behaviour on trains and everywhere else.”