SJPN - Phone went flat - didn't realise i had not paid for train fare when challenged. - help

[hakawaka92]

Hello all, I’m back! 
 

i hope you all had a lovely Christmas and all best for the new year. 
 

i have a dilemma and speaking on behalf of my girlfriend.

 

She received a penalty from an inspector but was never issued a penalty fare (£20) and was given a prosecution one instead.

She expected the £20 fare which she was happy to pay for but just today she reviewed a SJPN ordering her to pay £135!!! She received no reply regarding her reasoning of not paying. 
 

I have copied and pasted what she sent to them which she had received on the 28th December and was received late due to Royal Mail Strikes:

 

In response to the notice I would like to firstly apologise for the error on my part and I take full responsibility for this. 

 

Secondly before I begin I would like to highlight that the delay in my response is due to the fact that I received this notice on the 28th December 2022 - 17 days after the date it was issued. The letter states I needed to respond within 14 days making it late by 3 days already. 

I believe this was due to the numerous royal mail strikes that have occurred during this month, however for this reason I hope the lateness of my response will not implicate me further. 

 

I constantly travel through Thameslink to commute to work in London  and have never failed to pay for my fare, apart from this one occasion I did make a genuine mistake that I’ am taking full responsibility for. 

On this particular day I was rushing for my train whilst trying to purchase my parking and train ticket, I had a low percentage battery already so I was trying to buy these as quickly as possible before it dying completely. 

After paying for my parking I honestly thought I managed to get past to the point of payment as I had used my Apple pay to purchase my ticket through the Trainline app ( as I always do). Once managed to run on the train my battery was completely dead and I did not think much else of it. 

At St Albans a staff member came on asking for tickets and I was honest with the gentleman explaining that I had no physical ticket to show and that mine was on my phone. 

 

I understand now after he explained to me that  this is a common excuse train jumpers use to get out of paying for their tickets but this was a genuine mistake on my part.

Once I got to work and managed to charge my phone I checked my app to realise I hadn’t actually purchased it and I was mortified. I immediately jumped onto the website the train staff had given me and wrote down a brief explanation of the situation. 

I have no reason to not paying for my fares, I have a railcard and rail travel vouchers to use towards tickets, I use the train services every week to travel to work and have never failed to pay for my ticket. 

 

I apologise greatly for my poor/lack of judgement on that particular day, moving forward I plan on purchasing physical tickets at the station to avoid this ever happening again.

 

She received the letter late and went past the 14 days which probably explains why she had received the extortionate court fine.

 

is anyone able to assist with this or give advice?

 

Would really appreciate it!

 

many thanks 

[dx100uk]

she has not received the SJPN 'because' she missed any initial appeals window due to their time limits it doesn't , by default, operate like that. She has not received a fine of £135, it is a proposed figure, should this not be resolved before the court date.

 

it will be down to her reply not containing actual evidence which they require to corroborate her reply and explanation toward how this happened.

 

appeal again to the email address on the (TfL?) initial letter, apologising for the error, offering to pay all out of court expenses in order to settle this before court, to avoid a criminal record, because of XYZ reasons. include any evidence of attempts to pay, phone records, and proof of existence of the previous/existing tickets like a railcard and rail travel vouchers etc to show it was a one off mistake, not a purposeful attempt to avoid the fare.

 

it might cost her £135, but it won't result in a criminal record if settled OOC.

 

what date is the SJPN hearing date?

 

[hakawaka92]

Thank you for the reply

 

oh right okay.. may be that isn’t the case then. 

The thing I want to mainly raise with them is that the letter she received to respond back to and give her explanation of events was received past the respond by date. She didn’t have 14 days to respond to. Once she received the letter it had already been 3 days past the date which has given her no chance for them to even consider. I understand based on technicalities yes, she didn’t have a ticket in the end but she wasn’t given a fair chance to explain herself and when she did a decision had already been made.

 

Who knows the person looking into her reasoning may have accepted it so we can’t really judge it at all.

 

Had it not been for RM strikes she would have had her response sent before the 14 days.
 

there isn’t a hearing date as yet but she has to respond with a not guilty or guilty plea. I’ll send over the letter later when I get the chance

 

thank yoh again!

.

[dx100uk]

4 minutes ago, hakawaka92 said:

Thank you for the reply

 

oh right okay.. may be that isn’t the case then. 

The thing I want to mainly raise with them is that the letter she received to respond back to and give her explanation of events was received past the respond by date. She didn’t have 14 days to respond to. Once she received the letter it had already been 3 days past the date which has given her no chance for them to even consider. - does not matter

 

 

I understand based on technicalities yes, she didn’t have a ticket in the end but she wasn’t given a fair chance to explain herself and when she did a decision had already been made. - no no  decision has been made.

 

Who knows the person looking into her reasoning may have accepted it so we can’t really judge it at all.

 

Had it not been for RM strikes she would have had her response sent before the 14 days.
 

there isn’t a hearing date as yet but she has to respond with a not guilty or guilty plea. I’ll send over the letter later when I get the chance

 

thank yoh again!

.

 

there are 10's of threads here in this forum get reading a good few

send a new pleading letter with evidence. she will not get a criminal record for a human mistake.