Hello, all Today I received an intention to prosecute from Thamleslink railway in relation to an incident some weeks ago. To provide some background, I was having a pretty forgetful few days... I left my coat & gloves on the train, forget my suit when attending a wedding and in relation to this post, I forget to get a train ticket. For context, I was extremely sleep deprived as I recently became a father for the first time and was under a ton of pressure. At around 6am, I arrived at my train station late for my train which I was under pressure to make as I had a job interview (the company I work for has been recently bought so I don't have job security & I have bought a new house). I use carnet tickets where I fill in the ticket with the appropriate date. I had forgotten to pick up a new blank ticket that morning and proceeded to use an old ticket unintentionally to enter the barriers and board the train (I didnt check). I suddenly realised the mistake I had made and in my panic, I changed the date of the old ticket to the day of travel. I appreciate this is an error of judgement but in my haze of sleep deprivation and panic, I made a bad choice. A revenue inspector asked me to produce my ticket, which I did and he accused me of changing the dates. I attempted to explain myself and convince him it wasn't premeditated but he informed me of rights and took my details. I admitted my mistake to the officer and admitted to changing the dates. This is my first caution and I am now obviously worried about the outcome (fine, criminal record, prison sentence etc). I am obviously happy to pay a fine as I did a bad thing but I dont want to lose my job over this. I have tickets to prove I had a blank ticket at home and have never done this before. My offences are listed as; - Altering a ticket with intent - entering a train for the purpose of travelling without a ticket Any advice on how I should respond to the prosecution letter and guidance on what penalty they could impose would be appreciated. Thank you so much.

Hello,, Today I received a notice of intention to prosecute from Govia Thameslink Railway after an incident on Northern Rail back in January. I am extremely extremely worried about this incident and it is causing me great upset. I have read around on this forum and have prepared my response below to the notice of intended prosecution, please can you offer any advice on what I should / should not included and also indicate what the repercussions of this could be? Is there anything else I should do like ringing them etc? Any help is massively appreciated! RESPONSE: Dear Sir/Madam, I offer my most sincere apologise for my shameful actions in this case. In all other circumstances of my life, I had until this point - upheld a strong degree of integrity and character. As a young lady starting out my career, a criminal record would completely devastate my current and future employment prospects. I’m in my first job working in London and had been using carnets to travel to and from work. During the week of the 8th January, I was in the midst of moving house and with everything going on more stressed than normal. On the 10th January, I caught an extra early train at 6:21am from Letchworth Garden City to attend an earlier-than-usual meeting. Due to it being much earlier than I would typically travel, I hadn’t prepared a carnet beforehand like normal, but instead planned to complete a blank one on the train. In complete stupidity, I didn’t check there was a blank one in my bag and whilst on-board, I realised to my horror I had forgot to pack the empty carnet. In panic, I searched through my bag and could only find a previously used carnet. In a complete error of judgement, I stupidly changed the dates on the carnet to the 10th January. This was a terrible thing to do and I am extremely ashamed of my action. Upon arriving at Kings Cross, I was questioned by the ticket officer and at which point, I admitted whole heartedly to what I had done, apologised profusely and explained the circumstances. The officer thanked me for my honestly telling me he would leave a mark on my file, but advised he would have to report the incident. I made a grave mistake. I have never done anything like this before and certainly will not do anything of this nature again. I am extremely sorry for the way I acted and the damages this action has caused others. I am more than willing and able to make immediate payment to cover the unpaid fare and any other damages or administrative costs I’ve caused. I’m also happy to sign up to an annual ticket so this event can never happen again. I appreciate your consideration in this matter.

Hi there, new to these forums, but I googled the issue I faced this morning, and saw a couple of related threads here, so hoping I might be able to get some advice, or at least confirmation of what I believe! My situation is that after 17 years of using annual season tickets between my Hertfordshire home and work in the city, I switched to the carnet + oyster method, because I often do not need to travel to the office and it would save money. 1 week later, and I now have had to deal with an inspector this morning that wrote me up for altering the date on my ticket. I don't dispute that I did that, however I also don't believe I have done anything wrong here. Facts as I see them: 1) I had originally put in yesterday's date on the peak 'into london' ticket, however at the last minute, I did not travel that day, and the ticket was not used. 2) I subsequently corrected the day written on the ticket to today 3) I also corrected the date on the off peak 'return' carnet ticket that I was intending to use this evening 4) The inspector that looked at my ticket refused to accept it, and confiscated it. 5) When I showed him the return ticket I was intending to use (I did this to try and demonstrate that I had simply made a correction in advance of travel), he confiscated that as well! I believe my position in law here is that I have not broken any rules in correcting the date on an otherwise unused Carnet ticket. I looked at a post on here quoting the rail bylaws, and while there is commentary on ticket alteration, it is qualified: - No person shall alter any ticket in any way with the intent that an Operator shall be defrauded or prejudiced. Now given that they can themselves determine that the ticket was never used on the original date, plus I have plenty of work colleagues, family etc that can attest to the fact that I was at home (should it really come to that!), then it would seem that it was perfectly ok to alter the ticket in this case. Secondly, when you buy a Carnet, it comes with a seperately printed ticket card with its own conditions, and whilst it refers to the need to validate the ticket with the date in permanent ink, there is no reference to corrections or alterations being prohibited. Sorry if this sounds like a bit of a rant, but frankly it was hugely annoying to be in this situation. I'm glad to say that I at least remained calm and polite throughout (even when he handed out a veiled threat that there was a plain clothes police officer observing, and then backtracked when I insisted on speaking with them), but not only do I feel I have done nothing wrong here, but I've also had my 'return' ticket confiscated, which I fully believe I should be able to use - so in addition to having to wait for whatever letter they will send me, I also am out of pocket on the return. Any thoughts/advice appreciated. Maybe I should just go back to annual passes! RC

I have recieved a notice from the revenue collection agency giving me the opportunity to report on my incident. I was at Marylebone station on my return leg (outbound went without incident). My ticket wouldn't go through the turnstyle (as is often the case). when I presented it to the railway staff I was questioned about the date I had entered on my Carnet ticket. I have a biro pen which does work on these tickets and to me the date was pretty clear. Although I did not in any way change the date, my ticket was seized and I was given a warrant to travel/notice of ticket irregularity (after a fairly lengthy 'professional' debate i.e. no abusive language or threatening behaviour etc.). The customer services department for chiltern railways undertook an investigation and they believe the date to have been changed also. The date on the Carnet ticket and date of travel was the 19th and the claim by chiltern railways was that I had changed the date to a 19 from an 11. I expect to receive a summons. Can anyone offer any advice? It is my word against theirs and I have to reiterate here - I did not change the dates on the tickets after they had been entered prior to getting to the station platform.

Dear all, I've been fined on a first capital connect train (and I've paid on the spot) for travelling with a carnet ticket on the wrong direction (using the return ticket instead). This was a genuine mistake. However, the inspector spotted in my wallet (and confiscated) a couple of old tickets; they have been used few times in the past (and he realized that the handwritten date was cancelled and rewritten). he tooked my details on an notebook, and wrote beside them "fake carnet." he also tooked note of a travel card, (that I've used for opening the gates, avoiding to stamp the tickets and then reuse them). In a nutshell, although i did not attempt to travel with those tickets reused, they clearly might have evidences that I've been intentionally dodging the train fares for a couple of months. I was doing this to mitigate the ticket high costs, but now I would just get it right, Can you please help to understand the possible scenarios and how to act accordingly? I would try anything possible to avoid any criminal record.. I would appreciate any suggestions (for blaming i am already doing very well on my own ) Thanks guys. C.