Latest news with #lawbreaking
Daily Mail
a day ago
- General
- Daily Mail
Moment Robert Jenrick asks fare dodger if he is carrying a KNIFE as he confronts brazen passengers who jump Tube barriers
This is the moment Robert Jenrick confronted fare dodgers on the London Underground, asking if one of them was carrying a knife. The shadow justice secretary shared footage of himself approaching three men at Stratford station in an attempt to show the extent of lawbreaking in the capital. He can be heard asking one of them if they have a knife on them - as he questions why they think it is alright not to pay. Mr Jenrick, who previously ran for leader of the Conservative Party, said: 'Do you want to go back and pay like everybody else?' He then said: 'But everyone else has to pay.' One of the alleged fare dodgers, who was wearing a black coat and baseball cap, told him to 'f*** off'. The shadow cabinet member then replies: 'You can say f*** off as much as you want.' Towards the end of the clip, Mr Jenrick can be heard asking one of the men: 'You what, you're carrying a knife, did you say?' As well as fare dodging, the Tory politician also vowed to go after 'weird Turkish barber shops', as well as bike theft, shoplifting and drug use in town centres. In a piece to camera outside the east London station, he said these things were 'chipping away at society' - as he called on the authorities to go after lawbreakers. Mr Jenrick, whose role as shadow justice secretary does not include tackling crime, claimed London mayor Sadiq Khan is 'driving a proud city into the ground'. He captioned the video on X:' Lawbreaking is out of control. He's [Mr Khan] not acting. So, I did.' Speaking to Times Radio after he posted the clip, Mr Jenrick rejected the suggestion his vigilante fare dodger campaign was irresponsible. He said: 'We do all have a role in society to call people out. 'Everyone has to make their own decisions... I do think that we all have a role in society to call people out. 'If you see somebody chucking litter on the floor, it's not somebody else's problem. 'Frankly, it's not just the police who should step up.' Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch also welcomed Mr Jenrick's actions. She said: 'Rob is right. Sadiq Khan's been asleep at the wheel for 10 years and London is paying the price. Families don't feel safe. Investors are leaving. 'It's time to take back control of our city.' It comes as shocking footage showed the moment a fare dodger was told he owed more than £3,500 in unpaid ticket costs on Transport for London. The man had been using a bank card with no money on it for over a year - when he was caught by TfL investigators at Surrey Quays station in London's docklands. While the card had been accepted by the ticket reader each time, it had later resulted in a payment failure. This meant he was able to force the exit gates to open at a station without having to pay the TfL travel charge, racking up thousands of unpaid fees. The unsuspecting man was snared on his way to work, with investigators able to trace his usual journey and identify him on CCTV. After being taken in for an interview, the man claims he 'found' the card, before changing his mind and saying it was given to him by a friend. But this does little to convince the officers, as they reveal he owes TfL an eye-watering £3,573 from more than 500 journeys taken in over a year. The elaborate sting was captured in the latest episode of Channel 5 documentary 'Fare Dodgers: At War with the Law'. TfL investigator Lisa and her colleague spotted the man just as he was exiting the barriers at Surrey Quays train station. She asks the man to show her the card he used to tap out before asking where he got it. The man replies: 'No it's not mine, I found it.' 'Oh that's a whole different ball game now,' Lisa adds. She then checks the card on her own scanner, which confirms her suspicions that the card is faulty. 'You see there it's failed? So me and you need to have a conversation. So I am going to ask you in for an interview.' The fare dodger then asks: 'Is it going to take a long time? I'm working,' to which Lisa replies: 'It's going to take as long as it takes.' As she begins interviewing the man, Lisa tells him an investigation into the card shows that he had been using it illegally.
Yahoo
2 days ago
- General
- Yahoo
Sky News Presenter Compares Robert Jenrick To Hollywood Star Over Fare-Dodgers Video
A Sky News presenter compared Robert Jenrick to a Hollywood star over the video showing him tackling fare-dodgers on the London Underground. Trevor Phillips quoted a famous line delivered by Liam Neeson in the film Taken as he interviewed the shadow justice secretary this morning. In the video Jenrick posted on X last week, the former Tory leadership candidate is seen confronting several men who had forced their way through the ticket barriers on the Tube rather than paying for a ticket. He said lawbreaking was now 'out of control' in the capital, and accused London mayor Sadiq Khan of 'driving a proud city into the ground'. On Sky News this morning, Phillips told Jenrick: 'As I was watching it, the words 'I have acquired a very particular set of skills, skills that make me a nightmare for people like you' occurred in my mind. You'll know the reference, I imagine.' That is a line from the film Taken, in which Neeson plays Bryan Mills, a former government operative trying to rescue his daughter. Phillips added: 'Is this a new Robert Jenrick pitching for something – leader of the Conservative Party? Mayor of London?' Jenrick replied: 'No, I'm just trying to do my job as shadow justice secretary. 'You can wear a suit, you can be in Westminster, you can do great interviews with individuals like yourself, speeches in parliament, or you can also get out of Westminster, start talking about issues.' Phillips then interrupted him to say: 'This is Tik Tok politics though, isn't it?' But Jenrick said: 'I think you've got to listen to the public and sometimes you've got to shame the authorities into taking action. 'I've done this about litter in Birmingham, I've done it about tradesmen having their vans broken into and their tools nicked. I think this is an important way of raising issues.' "This is TikTok politics, isn't it?", Sky's @TrevorPTweets asks Shadow Justice Secretary @RobertJenrick after a video of the MP confronting 'fare dodgers' went viral this week. Read more: — Sky News (@SkyNews) June 1, 2025 Jenrick was criticised for his actions by by Maryam Eslamdoust, general secretary of the TSSA union, which represents Tube staff. She said: 'We've long said that fare evasion should be tackled through proper investment in staffing and enforcement and not by MPs playing hero on the commute. 'What we need is a fully funded British Transport Police, more London Underground revenue control teams, and a serious plan to tackle the causes of fare evasion. What we don't need are performative interventions.' Robert Jenrick Accused Of 'Playing Hero' By Tackling Fare-Dodgers On The Tube Robert Jenrick Suggests Nigel Farage Is On Drugs For Wanting To Scrap Two-Child Benefit Cap Wilfred Frost Fact-Checks Robert Jenrick In Painful On-Air Clash Over Tories' Winter Fuel Plan
The Guardian
4 days ago
- General
- The Guardian
Robert Jenrick turns vigilante in bid to tackle London's fare dodgers
Robert Jenrick is perhaps best known to the public as the former government minister who unlawfully intervened in a planning decision that could have saved a Conservative party donor tens of millions of pounds. To others, he may be the Tory MP that parliament's spending watchdog said was centrally involved in wasting nearly £100m on a botched plan to house asylum seekers. Now, however, Jenrick has a new claim to fame: as the man who released a video of himself delivering 'vigilante justice' to people he accused of fare dodging in London. The failed party leadership candidate posted a video online on Thursday morning in which he accused the London mayor, Sadiq Khan, of 'driving a proud city into the ground', adding: 'Lawbreaking is out of control. He's not acting. So, I did.' Jenrick is seen approaching people near tube barriers and asking them if they think 'it is all right not to pay'. Addressing the camera during the minute-long clip, Jenrick – who in 2020 accepted that his approval of the billionaire Richard Desmond's project had been unlawful – said it was 'so annoying watching so many people break the law and get away with it'. He added that the state needed to 'reassert itself and go after lawbreakers'. Transport for London (TfL) said fare-evasion had actually fallen slightly recently – down 0.3% on 2023/24's rate to 3.5%. And officials claimed it was lower than many cities globally – citing as an example the 13% seen in New York City. They said they hoped to further cut fare evasion in the capital to reach 1.5% by 2030. Nevertheless, it is still a serious problem in London – costing an estimated £130m a year. Siwan Hayward, TfL's director of security, policing and enforcement, said: 'Fare evasion is unacceptable. That is why we are strengthening our capability to deter and detect fare evaders, including expanding our team of professional investigators to target the most prolific fare evaders across the network.' And the Transport Salaried Staffs' Association said it had 'consistently called for a fully resourced British Transport police and trained revenue protection officers to tackle fare evasion effectively and safely'. It added: 'The latest incident involving a Conservative MP, who took it upon himself to confront fare dodgers on public transport, highlights the dangers of vigilante justice.' Jenrick also said in the clip: 'It's the same with bike theft, phone theft, tool theft, shoplifting, drugs in town centres, weird Turkish barber shops. It's all chipping away at society.' Asked to explain what he meant, Jenrick said: 'Obviously, many Turkish barber shops are good local businesses. However, when small towns have as many as 14 barber shops, many of them Turkish-styled and sitting empty, there are questions to answer. 'The National Crime Agency set out earlier this year that it's investigating the boom in 'Turkish barber shops' over concerns many are being used as fronts for money laundering drug and criminal profits. The authorities should continue to pursue suspicious premises.' Hours after the video emerged, Jenrick accepted he had not got permission to film on TfL premises, telling LBC radio he did not want to forewarn the organisation of his plan to potentially embarrass it. While it is understood he did not breach the letter of TfL's rules, a TfL spokesperson said: 'We expect permission to be sought for filming of this nature.' It is understood the organisation expects elected officials to work with it in such circumstances.
Telegraph
4 days ago
- General
- Telegraph
Why I stepped in to confront fare dodger
Britain is broken. Law-breaking is rife. Graffiti is everywhere. Many of our high streets are now a mix of charity stores, vape shops, and fake American candy stores. There is a collapse of basic standards in public spaces – hop on the bus and you're likely to be greeted with terrible music from someone else, stubbornly refusing to wear headphones. It's a total mess. Once-proud towns and cities are having their soul ripped out of them by petty law-breakers. Police are bystanders in this new system, reduced to a crime-reporting outfit rather than a proactive law-enforcement body. They seem more interested in poor-taste messages online, than the bread and butter, common-sense policing of our laws. I've had enough. Our public realm has been steadily chipped away at and too few people in authority are doing anything about it. Our leaders seem to just shrug their shoulders, unwilling to act – resigned to defeat. Many of them don't even notice the disorder as they spend their time in the protected bubble that is SW1. That's why last Saturday I went to Stratford station – one of the worst hotspots for fare dodging – to try and shame London's do-nothing mayor, Sadiq Khan, into action. His general approach to stopping law-breaking is to legalise it: just look at his comments on cannabis this week. According to YouGov, 79 per cent of train and Tube passengers say that they have personally seen fare dodging. Statistics show that one in 25 people who use the capital's public transport is not paying. But from my morning in Stratford station the problem must be much bigger than that. I watched as people flooded through an empty barrier, while the enforcement officer was on his backside, feet up, watching on. It was a perfect encapsulation of Broken Britain. Across London, the rate of prosecution for fare evasion is declining year-on-year. Pre-pandemic, in 2018/19, TfL prosecuted 31,003 people for fare evasion – in 2023/24, that figure stood at 18,570. There is now no deterrent for fare dodging and, unsurprisingly, it has exploded as a result. For ordinary hard-working citizens travelling into work on their morning commute, the sight of somebody slipping through the barriers without paying is a slap in the face. People who do the right thing are made to look like fools for sticking to the law, while others benefit from breaking the rules with impunity. The British state needs to reassert itself. In 1982, two social scientists in the US came up with the 'broken windows' theory of policing. They argued that visible signs of crime, antisocial behaviour, and disorder create an environment which encourages even more crime and disorder. That idea was taken up in the 1990s by William Bratton, New York's police commissioner under no-nonsense Mayor Rudy Giuliani, at a time when crime in the city was totally out of control. Bratton cracked down on fare evasion, public disorder, and graffiti. As a result, rates of both petty crime and serious crime fell sharply. Crime declined for the following decade. When the state shows the public that it cares, it creates an environment in which law and order is the norm. The rule of law requires that our laws are actually enforced. When small ones aren't applied, more serious offences inevitably follow. Before you know it, law and order has completely broken down and the state is left impotent, lacking all authority. That's where we're heading.
Daily Mail
5 days ago
- General
- Daily Mail
BREAKING NEWS Moment Robert Jenrick asks fare dodger if he is carrying a KNIFE as he confronts brazen passengers who jump Tube barriers
This is the moment Robert Jenrick confronted fare dodgers on the London Underground, asking if one of them was carrying a knife. The shadow justice secretary shared footage of him approaching three men at Stratford station in an attempt to show the extent of lawbreaking in the capital. He can be heard asking one of them if they have a knife on them - as he questions why they think it is alright not to pay. Mr Jenrick, who previously ran for leader of Conservative party, said: 'Do you want to go back and pay like everybody else?' He then said: 'But everyone else has to pay.' One of the alleged fare dodgers who was, wearing a black coat and baseball cap, told him to 'f*** off'. The shadow cabinet member then replies: 'You can say f*** off as much as you want.' Towards the end of the clip, Jenrick can be heard asking one of the men: 'You what, you're carrying a knife, did you say?' Mr Jenrick, whose justice secretary role does not cover crime, claimed London mayor Sadiq Khan is 'driving a proud city into the ground'. He captioned the video on X: 'Sadiq Khan is driving a proud city into the ground. Lawbreaking is out of control. He's not acting. So, I did.'
