It's the age old question of how you differentiate a "genuine passenger" from a "fare evader". Fare evaders will do their best to come across as a "genuine passenger" if they believe they will be caught travelling without a ticket.
Or its a simple case of how you view people.
Innocent until proven guilty, or guilty until proven innocent. Im pretty sure the accepted way of viewing people, is the former. Shame the same cant be said for Northern.
Looking at it through the eyes of an over zealous RPI is fine, until you realise that 99% of passengers would do exactly what the OP did. Having not seen the ticket office, but seen a ticket machine and a member of staff, once the ticket machine proved fruitless, you would head to the member of staff. Its the most natural thing in the world. Hence it is stupid to assume only fare evaders do that, because its not the case. This is why we treat people as innocent until proven guilty.
Asking someone the questions they ask, to try and ascertain guilt is stupid as well, and proves nothing. You are asking someone to imagine a different set of events, and expect them to know what they would have done. Quite often its not possible to know what you would have done for sure, because you havent had to face such a scenario.
Also remember that as far as the OP was concerned, the ticket office had gone, and as the RPI never pointed it out to her before asking his questions, it is quite easy to assume it didnt exist (most people would assume the RPI would have pointed it out if it did exist). So she is now expected to answer a question regarding a totally different sequence of events, and without enough information to enable a proper answer. Please tell me how her answers can prove anything? It cant.
Obviously the RPI and Northern are assuming she saw the ticket office. But you shouldnt make assumptions like this. There is one line I always remember from the bible I follow (its not really a bible). It states- " Do not make assumptions based on scanty information". This is exactly what the RPI has initially done. Made an assumption based on nothing but scanty information.
There are at least 3 very major flaws to Northerns argument. So major, it makes the rule they are following, look absolutely rediculous. How walking past a ticket office can be deemed enough evidence to prove she never intended to buy a ticket, is absolutely beyond me. For anybody to be convicted based on such evidence, and the answers to some unfair questions, just goes to make a mockery of our legal system. Unfortunately, as we all know, this is deemed to be ample evidence. God help us, thats all i can say.
Regarding te suggestion of selling the story to the Daily Mail. The headline suggested isnt a lie. Its 100% true. She wanted to buy a ticket from a member of staff, and got charged £80 for the privilege.