Penalty fare avoidance - ** SETTLED ON DAY OF HEARING **

[tulip1357]

Hello everyone.

 

I am a university student and

I have been looking for some legal advice recently and

i've come across CAG forums.

 

Let me explain my situation.

 

It was the 13th of december 2013.

It was the last day of university autumn term and

I was travelling from birmingham moor street to aylesbury station.

 

All seemed well until one of the guards at aylesbury station decided to check my ticket and railcard.

I did what they asked and told me that my railcard was expired.

The guard notified his supervisor about the situation.

 

They informed me that buying a discounted ticket with an expired railcard is an offence

and that i have to pay a penalty fare.

 

I made them aware that i know my responsibilities,

i acknowledged that i was at fault for not realising that my railcard was expired,

i accept the consequences and

i let them know that i am more than willing and capable of paying the penalty fare.

 

However,

i informed them that i will be away from the UK until the 10th of Jan 2014

(as i had a plane to catch on the 15th december),

thus i wouldnt be able to respond to whatever letter they send me.

 

They told me that this wouldnt be a problem and so i thought nothing else of this incident.

 

However,

months passed and i still havent heard anything from them.

 

Come mid march, they decided to take me to court as

I received a final notice stating that i have been avoiding paying the penalty fare.

 

This is what troubles me as i have made my intentions clear from the beginning

that i was willing to pay the fare yet they decided to sue me for avoiding paying the fare.

 

I was very cooperative with the people at aylesbury station from the beginning.

I gave them all the information they needed;

i showed them my passport and

i gave them my addresses both in my dorm in birmingham and in alyesbury.

 

I DID NOT receive any sort of notice of when, where and how to pay the penalty fare

at both addresses that i gave them and so they must have assumed

that I was avoiding paying the fare.

 

Now im being summoned to court on the 23rd of april.

 

What can i do at this point?

Edited April 13, 2014 by honeybee13
Paras.

[honeybee13]

Hello and welcome to CAG.

 

I've put some paragraphs into your post to make it easier to read. Hopefully the forum regulars will be along later.

 

It does sound as if a letter went astray. What paperwork did they hand you on the day? Sometimes they give you a penalty fare notice at the time.

 

It's never too late to contact the person who wrote to you and see if you can resolve this before the court date. You could explain that you haven't had any correspondence, etc.

 

It would be helpful to know what paperwork you had on the day please.

 

My best, HB

[tulip1357]

Hi HB. Thank you for your reply.

 

All they have sent are as follows: statement of facts, notice of prosecution, and a notice to defendant.

[honeybee13]

Hi HB. Thank you for your reply.

 

All they have sent are as follows: statement of facts, notice of prosecution, and a notice to defendant.

 

Thank you. And did they hand you a piece of paper on the day this happened?

 

HB

[JohnSwansea]

Usual advice in a case like this is to contact prosecutions dept at train co involved and ask if they would be willing to settle out of court. They often will do, esp for first / minor infractions where there is no aggravating factor.

 

Is it Chiltern Rail? Suggest you call them or email to ask if can be settled out of court. Some people say letters more effective but you don't have time. I would call first then follow up by email to their revenue protection / prosecutions dept. Keep it brief and business like. Slightly cut down version of what you posted would be fine.

 

My understanding is that settlements in this sort of case start at around £100 and are typically in the low hundreds.

 

However the timing may work against you, I understand that sometimes train cos don't like terminating prosecutions this close to court date, and of course they will have had to spend some time getting it to this stage when they didn't hear from you sooner

 

 

What legislation are they prosecuting you under? typically this would be prosecuted under a so called strict liability offence. Basically this means you are guilty if can be proved that you travelled without a valid ticket, intention does not come into it. If they do proceed with a strict liability prosecution then almost certain you will be convicted, as long as the train co gets its paperwork right, and can produce the note the inspector took at the time. They almost certainly can do this else would not have pursued it this far.

 

That's the bad news. The good is that the strict liability offences have relatively small penalties, fine in the hundreds of pounds usually, and are also so called non recordable offences, so do not show up on a standard crb check.

 

BTW if is chiltern they are responsive on twitter @chilternrailway so try asking them for a revenue department contact no if you don't have number or can't get through.

 

 

If it were me when speaking / emailing I would express regret at mistakenly travelling with out of date railcard, acknowledge was my error, acknowledge that they have had to spend time chasing, and then say taking this into account I would be grateful if you would consider an out of court settlement. Would £150 work? I can pay that by debit card now.

 

If you can stretch to £200 all the better.

 

Or just ask them if they would like to propose an amount. You can always try to negotiate their number down.

 

Given the approaching court date suggest you get on to them Monday morning. Good luck

Edited April 13, 2014 by Conniff
Removing link.

[Old-CodJA]

Given that you say you have already received a Summons it is imperative that you contact the office named on that summons, which will not be the rail company customer services office.

 

You need to contact the company prosecutors' office and their contact details will be printed on the Summons itself.

 

If you have an imminent Court date it will be pointless contacting the company customer services office because any delay in correspondence between departments may work against you.

[tulip1357]

Hello and apologies for the late reply everyone.

 

To answer a couple of your questions:

 

"Thank you. And did they hand you a piece of paper on the day this happened?"

- No they did not.

 

 

"Is it Chiltern Rail? Suggest you call them or email to ask if can be settled out of court. Some people say letters more effective but you don't have time. I would call first then follow up by email to their revenue protection / prosecutions dept. Keep it brief and business like. Slightly cut down version of what you posted would be fine. "

 

-Yes, in fact it is Chiltern rail. I did what you suggested and called the prosecutors. The person I wanted to talk to however was not available. They did advise me to write an email instead, and so i did.

 

"What legislation are they prosecuting you under?"

- Im not exactly sure. I did not find 'strict liability offence' on the legal notices they sent me or anything synonymous.

[JohnSwansea]

Hi thanks for the update. Does the court summons refer to any legislation (Acts of Parliament) or by-laws ?

 

Did you have a chance to email them ? Up to you but given the short time to the court date may be worth following up on the phone as soon as Tuesday afternoon

[Old-CodJA]

If the Summons to Court that you have received refers to an offence contrary to S.5 of The Regulation of Railways Act [1889] you are being charged with intending to avoid payment of the correct fare.

 

 

If the Summons refers to an offence contrary to National Railway Byelaw 18 (2005) then you have been charged with a strict liability matter.

 

 

If you are emailing the prosecutor's office it is best to do this as a signed letter which you should scan and attach to the email.

[JohnSwansea]

Any updates on this one? Did Chiltern acknowledge your email?

[Old-CodJA]

Any updates on this one? Did Chiltern acknowledge your email?

 

 

 

In my experience cases that have already been passed forward to the issue of a Summons will not be settled by email exchange. The most important thing to ensure is that you correspond with the prosecuting office named on the Summons. Customer services staff faced with a query relating to any matter that has already been summonsed will not be able to give any decision because at that stage the TOC will already have made their decision otherwise it would not be at the prosecution stage. Customer services staff will normally advise the sender to contact the office who have sent the Summons.

 

I have known cases where, because a customer services department is frequently busy and in contacting them the person who has been summonsed has addressed a query or mitigation to the wrong place, the correspondence may not be responded to promptly and because the prosecutor may not be made aware of this in time, the case may proceed in the defendants' absence, resulting in the Magistrates deciding to convict on the evidence before the Court.

 

Whilst it may be possible to get the Court to re-open and set aside in such circumstances if it can be shown that a signed letter had been put on file and not answered, much inconvenience can be avoided by ensuring the shortest route for correspondence.

 

If anyone receives a Summons and intends to respond, ALWAYS contact the prosecutor at the address printed on that Summons promptly.

[tulip1357]

Hello everyone and apologies for the very late reply. Exams are coming up and i have been preoccupied with it as well as my legal issues. Just wanted to update this thread so it may finally be closed.

 

I have tried all of the suggestions on this thread, and unfortunately it had amounted to nothing and I had to go forth with the hearing dated 23rd of April. Fortunately however, just before the usher called my name, I manage to find the prosecutor responsible for my hearing and managed to convince him to withdraw the hearing if i can pay the fare plus prosecution costs upfront; a whopping 226.5 pounds, which he agreed on!

 

Thank you to everyone for taking the time to read my thread and as well as for all the invaluable advises that you all have given.

[JohnSwansea]

Thanks for the update. Annoying that it had to go that far before being resolved, but better than getting a conviction I suppose.

[honeybee13]

Hello again.

 

I'm pleased that you have managed to settle this and avoid any blot on your record, although it was a tough lesson. Thank you for letting us know, I'll amend your thread title.

 

HB