No Ticket?

Commuter who tackled fare dodger 'was pushed to the limit'

The family of a commuter who was filmed throwing a suspected teenage fare dodger off a train last night insisted he was a "quiet man" who had been "pushed to the limit".

Alan Pollock, 35, a financial manager with one of the world's biggest asset management firms, was applauded by passengers when he dragged 19-year-old Sam Main from the Edinburgh-Perth train.
He intervened after the student failed to produce a valid ticket during an angry confrontation with a conductor.
Footage of the incident has been viewed 600,000 times on the internet and a Facebook group called, "Pay yer train ticket or the big man will chuck ye aff", has been set up in his honour.
The burly businessman, who was casually dressed in a rugby top at the time, is a performance manager with the blue chip investment management company BlackRock in Edinburgh.
He has refused to comment and is said to be embarrassed by the attention, but his father Jim, a retired accountant, said he brought his son up to know "right from wrong".
"It's very out of character for Alan. He must have been pushed to the limit. I was a wee bit disappointed no one actually got up and helped him."
He said his son would not have acted without the conductor’s permission to intervene.
“He's not impulsive, but the situation was getting out of hand and the inspector wasn't able to do anything. He's got his family's support.”
At their home on the banks of the River Forth in Stirling, the asset manager’s wife Avril described the father-of-three as a "quiet man".
He joined BlackRock last June, specialises in risk analysis and describes his interests as investing, running, hillwalking and canoeing. A spokesman for BlackRock refused to comment on the incident.
Meanwhile, Mr Main insisted yesterday that he was “clearly assaulted” and called for Mr Pollock to be charged.
The second year surveying student at Heriot Watt University in Edinburgh suffered cuts and bruises when he fell on the platform at Linlithgow station, one stop short of his destination at Polmont.