First Capital connect intend to prosecute

[kananga]

Can anyone advise me on how to proceed. On the morning of 4th September I had to catch a Eurostar train from St Pancras at 6:40 am. I travelled to St Pancras by Train from Tulse Hill, however I could not purchase a valid ticket at Tulse hill from the Southern ticket machine and my oyster card had just broken.

I tried searching for a single to St Pancras on the Southern Ticket Machine, but on searching for St P - no option for St Pancras came up - just St Pauls and another station starting in the same way. I went to the ticket office, but no one was manning the station, tried at the ticket machine for a second time and then as I was running out of time and I had to make the 5:51 train in order to make my connection I just went through the open barriers and got on the train. On Arriving at St Pancras I went straight to one of the people manning the barriers and he offered me the option of paying a fine which I declined as I intended on buying a ticket, but was not provided with the facilities to do so at the begging of my journey. He then took my details and I now have a very alarming letter telling me of first capital connect's intention to prosecute. Attached to this letter is an opportunity to respond.

What should I respond? I have a picture of the search screen of the ticket machine which shows that St Pancras does not appear when typing in St P - should I include this? Will they really prosecute me for this? I made every sffort to inform the employee at St Pancras that I was willing and had the funds to pay for a ticket. Any help very gratefully received!!!

 

[jon0844]

Aren't all the London stations written as 'London St Pancras' on the TVMs?

I agree it can be confusing, especially as the machines don't work like most SatNavs or mobiles where anything partially matching will show up (so pancras would reveal London St Pancras too).

However, you should have accepted the penalty fare and appealed it - or bought a ticket to St Pauls and explained (yes, you might still have found yourself asked to pay a PF but your 'case' might have been stronger for an appeal).

 

[maniacmartin]

I tried searching for a single to St Pancras on the Southern Ticket Machine, but on searching for St P - no option for St Pancras came up - just St Pauls and another station starting in the same way.

I believe you have to search for LONDON ST PANCRAS, not just ST PANCRAS, as that's how the London Terminal stations are named. This is not obvious to someone not in the know.

If you were unable to find the ticket you needed, technically you should have bought a ticket to cover part of your journey, and excessed this at the earliest opportunity (which would be at St Pancras in this case). I'm skeptical as to whether this would have ended up with you being treated differently though.

 

[Urban Gateline]

Nothing substantial to add, but I believe the OP should have just accepted the PF (Penalty Fare). They probably weren't aware that refusing the PF has made things a whole lot worse as the prosecution will likely cost more than that PF!

Penalty fares are for innocent mistakes so I think the RPI acted appropriately as the PF was refused.

 

[jon0844]

At this point, writing to FCC (in addition to responding to any paperwork from the company handling a potential prosecution) might be worthwhile, with your photo(s) and explanation.

Can't do any harm to point out the confusion on the machine, and see if they'll intervene to stop any further action (they CAN get things dropped very quickly in specific circumstances, although I'm not sure this would necessarily count).

I am not sure what to say about mentioning that you'd have used an Oyster card if it hadn't broken. Given that I find it hard to imagine how an Oyster card would break (and no doubt they would too), this almost counts against you because they might assume you could, and should, have used that and possibly either forgot it or didn't have sufficient funds.

I'm not accusing you of anything here, but trying to 'see it' from their point of view.

 

[MikeWh]

Given that I find it hard to imagine how an Oyster card would break (and no doubt they would too), this almost counts against you because they might assume you could, and should, have used that and possibly either forgot it or didn't have sufficient funds.

I'm not accusing you of anything here, but trying to 'see it' from their point of view.

I have had two Oyster cards malfunction. Putting them in the back pocket and sitting down puts a strain on the innards, as does leaving it in the pocket and washing plus tumble drying. I would be shocked if that possibility was not believed, and in fact it does help, because by usually paying with Oyster you no longer have to worry where you are going within the Oyster area as the system works it all out. To suddenly have to make sense of a TVM when the station is unstaffed should certainly be mitigating circumstances.

 

[jon0844]

Fair point, but I would still say they'd possibly be suspicious. Perhaps contact TfL and get someone to confirm the card is faulty/corrupt, and perhaps show a journey history that proves the card wasn't used since. The attempt to use the card might even show up somewhere? Assuming the card might be corrupted, not completely faulty?

 

[kananga]

At this point, writing to FCC (in addition to responding to any paperwork from the company handling a potential prosecution) might be worthwhile, with your photo(s) and explanation.

Can't do any harm to point out the confusion on the machine, and see if they'll intervene to stop any further action (they CAN get things dropped very quickly in specific circumstances, although I'm not sure this would necessarily count).

I am not sure what to say about mentioning that you'd have used an Oyster card if it hadn't broken. Given that I find it hard to imagine how an Oyster card would break (and no doubt they would too), this almost counts against you because they might assume you could, and should, have used that and possibly either forgot it or didn't have sufficient funds.

I'm not accusing you of anything here, but trying to 'see it' from their point of view.

I still have the oyster card and it hasn't worked since, it is actually a combined oyster and credit card and neither part has worked since. It seems that I should have taken the penalty fare, but at the time when offered this option I assumed this would be admitting wrong doing, as all I wanted to do was buy the correct ticket. Massively confusing, any idea what I can expect to happen if I put all this down and send it to them?

 

[island]

Unfortunately as you chose not to purchase any ticket before joining, not even for part of your journey, and then chose not to accept a Penalty Fare which you could later have appealed, this matter is likely to become much more expensive. You have committed a criminal offence by joining a train without a ticket when working ticket facilities were in operation at your station of departure, and unfortunately the law does not provide an excuse of being unable to operate the ticket machine successfully.

I would suggest writing back explaining the difficulty you had with the ticket machine, your intention to use Oyster which was stymied due to the card failing, and offering to pay the penalty fare of £20. Enclose independent evidence of the Oyster card failure and the photograph you mentioned. If this is accepted you will be quite lucky - they are within their rights to prosecute you and most settlements when it has reached this stage are in excess of £80.

On a side note, I do think people may have a right to feel hard done by when they are offered the opportunity to pay a penalty fare to resolve the matter, refuse because they misunderstood the implications or their right of appeal, and then end up in the prosecution workflow.

 

[jon0844]

Staff should perhaps explain a bit more thoroughly the possible consequencies, but I understand why they don't as they want to avoid conflict and so probably play down what could happen as a result of refusing - which might get some people rather upset.

So, they say the company will write to you to ask for your version of events later, which might imply that nothing serious will happen, and it's even preferable as it avoids the need to pay anything if they accept your 'story'. Problem is, it's not customer services asking you what happened!

Likewise, RPIs are often very quick to offer a PF and say 'hey, pay now and just appeal' - again to get the passenger to go away without arguing.

 

[furlong]

If you can go back to the station you could check some things.

Are you sure the ticket office was not open: find the sign that says what time it opens - 6.20am?

Is there a separate working machine (situated where you cannot miss seeing it) selling Permits to Travel at that station or not?

Is there a 'Penalty Fares' warning poster displayed prominently en route to the platform? If so, does the wording on it leave it open for you to board the train and pay later when the ticket office is closed, you cannot buy the ticket you require from the machine, and there is no working machine selling Permits to Travel?

 

[jb]

On a side note, I do think people may have a right to feel hard done by when they are offered the opportunity to pay a penalty fare to resolve the matter, refuse because they misunderstood the implications or their right of appeal, and then end up in the prosecution workflow.

Agreed. To my mind - although not all would agree by any means - "failing the attitude test" may fall into a similar category. Ticketing offences do not suddenly acquire greater seriousness through the attitude of the (quite possibly flustered) punter... save, perhaps, for the cases where intent to evade become evident.

I am often quick to point out to passengers that expecting TOCs to act on imponderables such as "I didn't know" is unrealistic - well, it cuts both ways; "attitude" (or even immediate "refusal to accept") should not magically escalate the severity of the offence.

 

[RPI]

Agreed that you probably should have accepted the PF and appealed, but that's irrelevant now as the time has passed, I would try explaining to the prosecutors your situation and to be honest, in this instance, if you don't get any joy then maybe try passenger focus, I wouldn't normally advise such but it does seem that if everything that the OP has said is right then it would be unfair to prosecute, the RPI has done nothing wrong either as it's cases such as this that the appeal service is for, the only thing that may go against is not accepting the PF.

 

[CheapAndNerdy]

You have committed a criminal offence by joining a train without a ticket when working ticket facilities were in operation at your station of departure, and unfortunately the law does not provide an excuse of being unable to operate the ticket machine successfully.

(my bolding)

Surely a byelaw offence, which (as I understand it) does not result in a criminal record if convicted, unless the train company believes they have sufficient evidence to prove intent not to pay. And of course it might not get that far anyway.

OP. Does your letter mention a byelaw offence or a Regulation of Railways Act 1889 offence?

 

[jb]

(my bolding)

Surely a byelaw offence, which (as I understand it) does not result in a criminal record if convicted, unless the train company believes they have sufficient evidence to prove intent not to pay. And of course it might not get that far anyway.

OP. Does your letter mention a byelaw offence or a Regulation of Railways Act 1889 offence?

The offence is still criminal whether it's recordable or not.

Fair question to the OP. The letter will probably mention both, however.

 

[CheapAndNerdy]

The offence is still criminal whether it's recordable or not.

OK. I understand now. Thanks.

 

[thedbdiboy]

I had a conversation with someone involved in the simplification of the bye-laws enacted some years ago which resulted in the creation of bye-law 18 in its current form. Interestingly enough, he recalled that the SRA at the time were very clear that whilst it gave TOCs a clear statutory ability to pursue someone in non-possession of a ticket, it was not intended to be used as a means by which TOCs could use the threat of prosecution as a means to enforce ticket buying with absolutely no mitigating circumstances allowed.

If the facts of this case are as recalled by the OP, he;
- attempted to buy a ticket at the start of his journey
- being unable to fathom the TVM he tried to buy one at the end of his journey
- he gets told to pay a Penalty Fare
- when he (unsurprisingly) demurs his details are taken for a byelaw 18 Prosecution

Leave aside the interpretation of the rules, does this strike you as a reasonable approach?

 

[furlong]

I have a picture of the search screen of the ticket machine which shows that St Pancras does not appear when typing in St P - should I include this?

I can think of no good reason why the ticket machine would not offer fares to St Pancras when you start to type that. Why don't machines also cope with common spelling mistakes, and allow you to choose your destination from a railway map?

I have even seen machines with notices on them, as a workaround for this shortcoming, advising people what destination they need to type into the machine to obtain the appropriate London ticket!

I can also think of no good reason why, when the destination you try to enter is not recognised, the machines do not offer you a Permit to Travel or alternatively advise you to purchase a ticket to enable you to make part of your journey to make it easier to enforce that part of the current conditions of carriage. The machine could even ask you to type your intended destination which could be printed on the permit and reviewed by management to see if it should be recognised by the machines in future.

 

[jon0844]

Byelaw 18 does appear to be open to abuse.

I can think of no good reason why the ticket machine would not offer fares to St Pancras when you start to type that. Why don't machines also cope with common spelling mistakes, and allow you to choose your destination from a railway map?

Because the software is crap, that's why. I suspect there has been little to no usability testing on the software, but as it works (for the most part) nobody has ever had any incentive to change it. Look at any smartphone operating system to see that you don't have to dumb things down to make them easier to use, yet I bet that's the most common excuse.

I've ranted for some time about how bad the software is - and that we can make a TVM more advanced and yet more simple to use, if you design things well and then put it out to proper testing.

We've now got a software update on some machines to let you change the origin station, but it's pretty well hidden. And once you've selected your origin station - you now have to search your destination manually as any 'quick fares' are no longer shown (even though you'd perhaps imagine that the software could show common destinations or Travelcards from the newly chosen station). Maybe that's a bit picky, but there are many more annoying issues.

Finding groupsave tickets and other things is also confusing, and if a TOC has more than one ticket machine type then it might also have totally different software for each, so Mr or Mrs Technophobe now has to learn two different user interfaces!

At the very least, the software should eliminate stations as you type more text until the chosen one appears by default. And that could still allow for typos.

You can't even enter stations by their 3 digit codes, unless that's recently changed. That's rather silly as many TOCs now advertise these for using apps/text based services and it also helps make sure you've definitely entered the right station.

 

[cuccir]

A brief summary of how I read the situation:

• It is a legal obligation to hold a ticket when travelling (see Byelaw 18)
• The only exception to this is if it was not possible to purchase a ticket at the station, because of the lack of availability of facilities.
• In your situation, we have an odd circumstance - the opportunity was there to buy your ticket, but you were not aware of how to use the TVM to do this.
• I can imagine a lawyer challenging an attempted prosecution on the grounds that you made a reasonable attempt to buy a ticket, and that a reasonable person would think that they should be able to buy a ticket to St Pancras by typing 'St Pancras'.
• However, you would be relying on the skill of your lawyer v the TOC's, and the interpretation of a judge. Getting a lawyer with experience of railway law does not come cheap

Jonmorris' advice from earlier up the thread, therefore, for me, stands. I reckon that if you respond with a clear and factual description of what you did on the day, emphasizing your attempts to purchase a ticket, there's a decent chance that FCC may be willing to drop this. This would be particularly true if your letter is accompanied by a copy of the photograph, and an offer to pay the full fare for your journey (I'd be tempted, in this instance, to enclose a cheque in the response).

However, you should be aware of the risk that you run if taking this approach: namely, that FCC will decide to prosecute you, and that you will need to spend a lot of money on an expensive lawyer.

 

[34D]

I believe you have to search for LONDON ST PANCRAS, not just ST PANCRAS, as that's how the London Terminal stations are named. This is not obvious to someone not in the know.

Though I believe London Farringdon is just "Farringdon" or possibly "Farringdon Und" and London Bridge is just "London Bridge" and not "London London Bridge".

 

[Nick W]

Network Rail, First Capital Connect, Royal Mail, Ordnance Survey and wikipedia all refer to the station a St Pancras station or St Pancras International. If the ticket machine did not offer a ticket to St Pancras..., it was not in working order!

 

[Clip]

Though I believe London Farringdon is just "Farringdon" or possibly "Farringdon Und" and London Bridge is just "London Bridge" and not "London London Bridge".

Im sorry but this really did make me chuckle and I cant honestly believe that you actually wrote that without thinking first.

 

[kananga]

There is no indication at all under which law they intend to prosecute, just that my offence was 'Failing to hand over a rail ticket for inspection'.

Further to this I approached the employee at the barriers and asked to purchase a ticket, so didn't actually fail to produce a ticket as I wasn't asked to produce one. I also gave an extensive account of my problem in buying a ticket at at the time to this employee who noted it down. Why haven't they given me this script to check and approve?

 

[34D]

Im sorry but this really did make me chuckle and I cant honestly believe that you actually wrote that without thinking first.

A lot of thought goes into all my posts on here.

Fergie ferg gonna love you long time.

 

[island]

Network Rail, First Capital Connect, Royal Mail, Ordnance Survey and wikipedia all refer to the station a St Pancras station or St Pancras International. If the ticket machine did not offer a ticket to St Pancras..., it was not in working order!

While I disagree with your point, admitting it for the purpose of the argument leads to the same conclusion with regards to the OP, who was obliged to purchase a ticket that would cover at least part of his/her journey (per NRCoC 3) and pay the difference to a staff member at the first opportunity.

 

[bb21]

There is no indication at all under which law they intend to prosecute, just that my offence was 'Failing to hand over a rail ticket for inspection'.

Sounds like a Byelaw case to me.

 

[island]

Yes it is, byelaw 18 (2) from memory.

 

[Nick W]

While I disagree with your point, admitting it for the purpose of the argument leads to the same conclusion with regards to the OP, who was obliged to purchase a ticket that would cover at least part of his/her journey (per NRCoC 3) and pay the difference to a staff member at the first opportunity.

Presumably your disagreement is that a machine is in working order if it will sell a ticket to the the station name as known by ATOC as oppose to every other organisation.

Since it is well documented that many members of the public have struggled with the same issue, yet the problem has not been alleviated, I'd disagree.

The customer has breached a contract (unseen as it was). I don't think this is relevant to a criminal prosecution.

 

[island]

What I am saying is, even if I agree with you that the machine was not in working order, the passenger was still obliged to buy some ticket that would allow him/her to commence his/her journey, and he/she chose not to do so in order to make a certain train, whereas he/she had multiple options, including consulting a staff member via the help point. Byelaw 18 (3) provides that a person does not commit an offence under byelaws 18 (1) and (2) if there were no working facilities for the purchase of any ticket at the station where he started his journey (my emphasis). As the machine would sell at least some tickets [and indeed would sell the one the customer required if the customer had been aware of how to request it], the passenger is in violation of the byelaw.