I am one of the few posters to this forum who will ever be able to appreciate the full import of the post to which you refer, as I was emailed a copy when it was first posted, but suffice it to say that it detailed an illegal and rather foolhardy method by "Biggus Dickus" to avoid paying fares on the DLR. However, his post did make a very valid point - he was outraged at the continual leniency showed by the uniformed bullies on the DLR when they are faced with what they don't see as a soft touch. I made a simple mistake from which I could not have possibly have profited. yet I got a penalty fare . Since then I have seen students from UEL who have 'forgotten' to touch in being allowed to pay at their destination (they simply get off at the nearest station without barriers) or to get off the train at the next station and touch in (they wait for the next train). I also saw an inspector backing down when he asked a rather muscular young chap for his ticket and was told 'Nuh. Nuh ticket.' - he was allowed to pay at his destination, which he obviously didn't do. I protested when a female inspector allowed a woman to evade her fares (which is what she was doing) and received a fairly sarcastic response - if I didn't like it I should buy a car. I see this happening all the time and it is both unfair and discrimatory, and in fact I wonder if it could be used as the basis of a legal challenge to penalty fares in the first place - since they law is being applied in a random, haphazard and discriminatory fashion, can it be enforced at all? The ambulance chasers may have the floor for me - I maintain my original stance that London has one of the worst public transport systems in the world and I only use it when I absolutely have to, which is my way of (legally) avoiding paying our outrageously expensive fares in the first place.

Bought the motorcycle - a nippy little 125cc runabout. Cost me £836 including registration, road tax and insurance. I have offstreet parking at my gaff and parking a motorcycle at work is free. So, where once I spent £27.00 a week on our wretchedly bad public transport system I will now bimble along polluting to my heart's content, and in week number one will deprive TfL of more than the money they bullied out of me for the heinous crime of making a simple mistake.

You may be right (and you are certainly right about overpaid ambulance chasers) but I couldn't be bothered fannying about with all this crap for less than an hour's pay. I doubt the self-important little twerp who demonstrated his inability to transcribe a two syllable, completely phonetic name from a clear, printed original is on a commission - or if he can even spell the bloody word - so it's all the same to me.

Update ... if anyone is so lacking in something to do that they are really interested ... I spoke to my Union's legal service today and they pretty much confirmed everything the solicitor said. The post immediately above is wrong - I can pay the penalty fare 'Without Prejudice' and follow that up with a claim for a refund. The Penalty Fare Notice issued to me is invalid as it was incorrectly prepared. That's all the good news. The bad news is that I need a solicitor's letter to continue with this absurd boondoggle and that is going to cost me £120.00, which I might get back. I might not. So, the hell with it. Travelling on London's appalling public transport system is uncomfortable, frustrating and very expensive. We have one of the worst public transport systems I have ever experienced and it is deteriorating by the day. Running into semi-literate jobsworths who do not comprehend English well enough to understand the difference between an innocent mistake and a criminal act is just part of that experience, no worse than the daily collapse of large parts of the Tube due to signal failures or the DLR being switched off for a couple of days because someone put the wrong programme into a computer. Far worse things can happen when you put inadequate people in uniforms and give them power, so I suppose I should think myself lucky in that respect. I paid the ticket (and I really don't care what you call it!) today and will chalk this one down to experience. The hell with the enviornment, I am buying a motorbike.

If you had read my post you would see that I point out that fifty percent of appeals are successful. In fact that's an exaggeration but I clearly acknowledged that many appeals do get through. (None through the IRCAS showboat, though.) My point is not that you cannot successfully appeal against a Penalty Fare Notice - my point is that it will cost you more than £25.00 to do so. As a matter of fact I am paying the fine tomorrow and will then be taking legal action to secure a refund, based on the fact that the ticket is unenforceable as it is not a legal document. Watch this space.

I am exactly the same situation as you, and my advice may surprise you. Pay the fine. I was stopped by an inspector, also on the DLR, who issued me with a Penalty Fare Notice. Now, I am sure that I did touch in, but either my Oyster Card or the machine itself was defective. I too was heading for a station with barriers (Bank, in my case) and could not have avoided the fare, even if I was trying to do so. The person refused to listen to reason and he issued the PFN. Now, here’s the thing – he couldn’t speak or understand English well enough to comprehend what I was saying to him, nor could he explain to me his reasons for not listening to sense and instead issuing me with a ticket. Now, I have no time for political correctness, racial or national politics – I don’t care where you come from, and you could be purple for all I care, but if I lived and worked in France and had a job involving the issuing of legal documents I would make damn sure I spoke, understood and wrote French well enough to do my job properly! Needless to say he was functionally illiterate. He had to laboriously transcribe my surname from my i.d. and despite the fact that it was in front of him, printed clearly, he misspelled it. Twice. He amended each misspelling with a messy scribble. I saw a solicitor the next day and she advised me that either PFNs are legal documents, in which case they cannot be amended by scribbled alterations, or they are not legal documents, in which case they are unenforceable. She also told me to stop wasting my time and pay the fine. Here is the way of things. IRCAS do not hear appeals. They pretend to, but they don’t. Their rejection letter will arrive two days after you post your appeal, meaning they had no time to consider it, and it will not refer to your grounds of appeal. Having an appeal heard by the body which issued the PFN is a bit backwards anyway, but there you go. you now appeal to TFL, and they will reject your appeal too, and pass you on to the next level. by the time you get to this stage you have spent a tenner on registered mail – if you send your appeal to IRCAS or TFL by ordinary mail they will throw it away and pretend they didn’t get it – so you are half way to paying the bloody fine already, and these costs are not recoverable. by the time you have won your appeal – and you have at best a fifty fifty shot, you will have spent the best part of £20 and god knows how much time defending yourself against a fine of £25.00 don’t pay the fine and go to court on the grounds that the PFN is invalid? Well, you’re right, but that doesn’t mean you’ll win, and even if you do you will win on the swings and lose on the roundabouts. If you choose to represent yourself you will irritate the Magistrate who won’t like being lectured by a layman, and you might make some trivial technical error which will lose you the case anyway. If you engage a solicitor to represent you then you are looking at fees of between £1500 and £2000, and you are by no means guaranteed to get that money back. If you lose, then it’s gone anyway and you now have a thumping great fine to pay and an ambulance chaser who wants a deep and meaningful discussion with you about the thousands of pounds you owe them. You might also find yourself the proud possessor of a criminal record, which means you may not have a job at the end of it all. If you win you might get your costs awarded but that is not guaranteed – the Magistrate may not appreciate having his/her time wasted listening to trivial nonsense like the validity of a legal document which represents a total loss to you of just £25.00. It is a legal fiction that costs are automatically awarded to the victor in a court case – it’s up to the Magistrate. Better hope you don’t get one with a hangover. Nor is it worthwhile presenting your own legal challenge to the PFN, either instead of paying it, or in order to obtain a refund after paying it. Again, you are looking at thousands of pounds in legal fees which you might not be able to recover, win lose or draw. Now, I emphasise, you are right, and I have every sympathy for you, but this case is not worth pursuing. Fixed Penalty Notices are not designed to deter fare evasion, they are a vitally important part of TFL’s revenue stream, and they are not going to allow that to be disrupted. They hear appeals against their own decisions and they reject them as a matter of policy, with no account taken of the legal issues involved. They know perfectly well that nobody is going to spend thousands of pounds disputing the legality of their system, even though it is being systematically abused by idiots like the one who issued my ticket and is clearly open to legal challenge. They also know perfectly well that the kind of people who have the kind of money to throw away challenging them don’t waste their time travelling on our abysmal, near worthless public transport “system” anyway. sorry to have to tell you, but you are out £25.00, just like me.