Penalty for trespassing on the railway

[PG]

Can I ask - when did the penalty for trespassing on the railway become £1000 ?
Just happened to have one of those red warning signs

Photo: Elliott Brown
crop up in a google search. Can't recall when I'd have last ventured to the end of a platform but IIRC it used to be £200 and I've an even hazier recollection of it being £50 when I was a child.

 

[bengley]

I think the police normally just issue an £80 fixed penalty notice.

£1000 is if you're prosecuted.

 

[PG]

I was curious if the penalty had just gone £50 to £200 to £1000 over the years or if it had gradually increased?

 

[DaveNewcastle]

It's not a trivial subject - there's the tort of civil trespass on Railway property, and there is Criminal Trespass, which will be the usual way of dealing with people unlawfully in such a dangerous place.

The Regulation of Railways Act 1840 imposed a fine of £5 for trespass, the British Railways Act 1965 increased that to £200.
Trespass on the track where there was no notice was captured by the Regulation of Railways Act 1868 & 1971 which imposed a fine of £2.

The 2002 Railway Byelaws didn't use the word Trespass but referred to unauthorised access, and it was those Byelaws which regularised the tariff of fines at level 2 and level 3 on "the standard scale", which is where the figures of £500 and £1000 can be found today - before 1992 these were £100 and £400 respectively. The standard scale is a tarrif set out for most if not all criminal matters in England & Wales - Scotland refers to a 'proscribed sum'.

 

[Stigy]

The £1,000 is the maximum penalty upon conviction (realistically it would never be that much though). BTP and Accredited Officers under RSAS can issue PNDs of £60 for trespass on a railway. Bear in mind that Trespass in this respect relates to trackside, and not civil trespass which is completely different. Line side trespass is set out in the British Transport Commission Act 1949. Days gone past we used to be able to deal with level crossing mis- use by pedestrians as trespass, be it by way of PND or reporting the offence. Unfortunately though, the law commission has concluded that level crossing misuse isn't trespass, therefore the closest Byelaw to this us Byelaw 12, which can be used, although PNDs can't anymore.

 

[Romilly]

it was those Byelaws which regularised the tariff of fines at level 2 and level 3 on "the standard scale", which is where the figures of £500 and £1000 can be found today - before 1992 these were £100 and £400 respectively. The standard scale is a tarrif set out for most if not all criminal matters in England & Wales - Scotland refers to a 'proscribed sum'.

The concept of "the standard scale" is, so far as I am aware, still valid throughout the UK, but the scale applies to offences which are only capable of being tried summarily (i.e. ones which, in England and Wales, can be tried only in a magistrates' court). The reference to the "prescribed sum" is presumably to the amount of "the statutory maximum" which again is still, I think, a UK-wide concept, and in England and Wales is the maximum fine that can be imposed by a magistrates' court that is trying an "either way" offence (i.e. an offence that can be tried either by a magistrates' court or by the Crown Court). When section 85 of the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012 comes into force, magistrates' courts in England and Wales will generally be able to impose unlimited fines in cases where at present the maximum is either level 5 on the standard scale or "the statutory maximum" (both of which are currently £5,000).