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Bizarre case of mistaken identity leads to train fine court case

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GodAtum

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A HARDWORKING father-of-four from Sale was plunged into a Kafkaesque series of court appearance s following an apparent case of mistaken identity.

Lee Wainwright says he was 250 miles away in Essex when someone on Piccadilly station gave his details to inspectors after getting stopped without a ticket.

The first thing the 39-year-old knew about his alleged illegal train ride on February 20, 2013, was when Greater Manchester Central Accounts and Enforcement Unit tried to take £322 out of his wages last month, acting on information provided by prosecuting body, Northern Rail.

“I received an email from my employers, Odema Ltd, saying they’d been contacted by the court and had to take a percentage off my wages because of an unpaid fine,” explained Lee, of Kenyon Avenue.

“Apparently, I’d been caught at Manchester Piccadilly without a valid train ticket, but I haven’t been on a train for 25 years. I don’t use public transport.”

...

http://www.messengernewspapers.co.u...ntity_leads_to_train_fine_court_case/?ref=rss

Interestign case. I wonder how the court got a completely incorrect address and why they would contact his work? Surely the court should contact him directly, as it is a breach of privacy if they contacted his work?
 
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DaveNewcastle

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Surely the court should contact him directly, as it is a breach of privacy if they contacted his work?
It would have been an "Attachment of Earnings Order" (AEO), made under the 1971 Attachment of Earnings Act, which, following a conviction, allows the Courts to receive penalties in instalments as they are deducted from the person's regular wage / salary. It is a very common procedure.
 

najaB

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Surely the court should contact him directly, as it is a breach of privacy if they contacted his work?
In what way is the court contacting an employer about an unpaid fine a breach of privacy?
 

Puffing Devil

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There would have been plenty of letters to the address the court had for him... Summons, Notification of Fine, Chasing non-payment of fine.
 
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Navajo8686

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How did the court - or anybody else - know who the employer was?

That is a level of detail which isn't recorded whenever I PF or interview somebody.

If somebody had used his address then surely there would have been some correspondence to his address. If that address was not given then how could the prosecution proceed given that somebody else must have been getting the letters?

Something doesn't sound right (I'm not suggesting that the original complainant is lying BTW!)
 

DownSouth

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How did the court - or anybody else - know who the employer was?

That is a level of detail which isn't recorded whenever I PF or interview somebody.
When a court order is given to collect unpaid fine/s by garnishing wages in Australia, it is essentially two court orders in one - one telling the Australian Taxation Office to provide the details they have regarding the person's employer and the second to the employer to make the necessary deductions.

I expect that the broad concept would be similar in Britain even if the specific details (e.g. name of the ATO equivalent) are different.
 

Agent_c

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When a court order is given to collect unpaid fine/s by garnishing wages in Australia, it is essentially two court orders in one - one telling the Australian Taxation Office to provide the details they have regarding the person's employer and the second to the employer to make the necessary deductions.

I expect that the broad concept would be similar in Britain even if the specific details (e.g. name of the ATO equivalent) are different.

Her Majesty's revenue and customs. The custom is probably different depending on which part of the Uk you're in (Scottish Law is different to English/Welsh law, sometimes different words for near identical things, sometimes different concepts entirely).
 

swj99

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There would have been plenty of letters to the address the court had for him... Summons, Notification of Fine, Chasing non-payment of fine.
Which according to the newspaper report, was an address in Bredbury, where Mr Wainwright does not live.

The first thing the 39-year-old knew about his alleged illegal train ride on February 20, 2013, was when Greater Manchester Central Accounts and Enforcement Unit tried to take £322 out of his wages....
If a summons, notification of fine, chasing letters etc were not sent to Mr Wainwright at the address where he actually resides, then it is quite understandable that he was not aware of the matter until his employer received an attachment of earnings order.

If somebody had used his address then surely there would have been some correspondence to his address.....

It doesn't say anyone used his address.
....the offender initially giving an address in Bredbury....

Perhaps the defendant was convicted in his absence on the day of the court hearing, and then flawed attempts were made to trace the defendant. At some point, Northern Rail or the court itself found an actual address for Mr Lee Wainwright, and wrongly assumed he was the defendant.
“.........Now it’s down to me to prove my innocence. I didn’t think the British justice system was supposed to work like that,” he added.

No it isn't. It is for the prosecution to prove that the defendant before the court is guilty of an offence.

However, a spokesman for Northern Rail has now said they won’t be pursuing a case against Lee.
Possibly because they now accept that the person who committed the offence is someone else.
 

pemma

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Bolton News said:
A MISTAKEN identity error by Bolton Magistrates Court has been blamed for plunging an innocent dad-of-four into a Kafkaesque series of court appearances over an unpaid train ticket.

Lee Wainwright says he was 250 miles away in Essex when someone at Manchester Piccadilly station gave his details to inspectors after getting stopped without a ticket.

Now Northern Rail and the courts service are blaming each other for the mistake.

The first thing the 39-year-old knew about his alleged illegal train ride on February 20, 2013, was when Greater Manchester Central Accounts and Enforcement Unit tried to take £322 out of his wages last month, acting on information provided by prosecuting body, Northern Rail.

“I received an email from my employers, Odema Ltd, saying they’d been contacted by the court and had to take a percentage off my wages because of an unpaid fine,” said Mr Wainwright, of Kenyon Avenue, Sale.

“Apparently, I’d been caught at Manchester Piccadilly without a valid train ticket, but I haven’t been on a train for 25 years. I don’t use public transport.”

Mr Wainwright, an on-call data engineer whose job takes him all over the UK at short notice, has timesheets indicating that he was working on a computer system at McDonald's in Colchester on the day of the offence.

Furthermore, the fine had somehow found its way to Lee despite the fare dodger initially giving an address in Bredbury — somewhere Lee has never lived — and which was somehow linked to him via another Sale address he hasn’t lived in since he was 15.

“I explained it wasn’t me. I can’t understand why the first time I heard about it was when they were about to take it out of my wages. It’s like they haven’t made the effort to find me.

“If they can contact my work, then why didn’t they ask my employers for my correct address?

“I’ve lived here for nine years. I’m on the electoral register."

Mr Wainwright found himself at Trafford Magistrates Court having to obtain a statutory declaration, blocking the money from being removed from his account and getting the original hearing re-listed at Bolton Magistrates Court.

He has already had to take two days off work to deal with the situation.

“This really has stressed me out a lot. Now it’s down to me to prove my innocence. I didn’t think the British justice system was supposed to work like that,” he said.

An HM Courts and Tribunals Service spokesman said it is the prosecutor who provides information to the court on the identity and address of the defendant.

He added: “Following a statutory declaration made by Mr Wainwright, the case has been relisted for June 1 2015 at Bolton Magistrates Court."

However, a spokesman for Northern Rail has now said they won’t be pursuing a case against Lee.

“The fact that the case has been linked to Lee Wainwright through an old address is nothing to do with Northern Rail,” a spokesman said.

“We simply took the name and address of the individual on the day and attempted to contact them after the event to reclaim the fare they had not paid for into Manchester.

“Due to the information we have, we will not be pursuing the case against Mr Wainwright but the link to an old address and therefore ‘mistaken identity’ was down to Bolton Magistrates Court, not ourselves.”

http://www.theboltonnews.co.uk/news...afkaesque_nightmare_over_unpaid_train_ticket/

Obviously STM don't verify the identity of people they catch without tickets but then did anyone think that they actually did?
 

GadgetMan

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Obviously STM don't verify the identity of people they catch without tickets but then did anyone think that they actually did?



Out of interest, how exactly do you suggest rail staff verify the details they are given? Considering a number of people on this forum keep going on about the fact fare dodgers who are being questioned are under no obligation to provide any proof of name/address etc.
 

reb0118

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Out of interest, how exactly do you suggest rail staff verify the details they are given?

I used to lock them in the toilet until they saw sense. I got too many "please explains" so I stopped - well that and the fact that modern train toilets are damn difficult to lock with a BR No. 1 key.

Should we have a national identity card in this country? It might make my job a bit easier..........
 

najaB

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Should we have a national identity card in this country? It might make my job a bit easier..........
Yes.

It would make many people's jobs a lot easier. I lived 20+ years in a country that has national ID cards and it makes everything so much easier than two bills and a bank statement. And with the new more advanced cards they're introducing, ID theft is almost a non-problem.

Never going to happen here, unfortunately, due to the hyperbole spouted in the name of 'civil liberties'. Just as would a universal DNA database. Also never going to happen.
 

najaB

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Do you really think criminals won't find a way to exploit identity cards? When your identity card has been cloned then you're really screwed.
No, I don't believe that they would be impossible to clone. But they would set a much higher bar than 'two bills and a bank statement'.
 

185

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Out of interest, how exactly do you suggest rail staff verify the details they are given?

I'm all for removal of fingers, for comparison at a later point. Boss seems to disagree. :(
 

ainsworth74

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I'm all for removal of fingers, for comparison at a later point. Boss seems to disagree.

Probably best not let the Gurkha's do revenue then as this incident suggests we might have to worry about more than fingers!

A Gurkha soldier has been flown back to the UK after hacking the head off a dead Taliban commander with his ceremonial knife to prove the dead man’s identity.

The private, from 1st Battalion, Royal Gurkha Rifles, was involved in a fierce firefight with insurgents in the Babaji area of central Helmand Province when the incident took place earlier this month.

His unit had been told that they were seeking a ‘high value target,’ a Taliban commander, and that they must prove they had killed the right man.

Source

;)
 
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