bb21
Emeritus Moderator
- Joined
- 4 Feb 2010
- Messages
- 24,151
I was reading other posts in this forum and other companies do send letters to travellers for explanation. I never had that opportunity. Sending a letter to me and say "pay or you have the risk of being prosecuted" is just... I cant even find a proper adj to describe this.
I think someone else has pointed out that you will always be given your chance to argue your side of the story at the court, should you allow it to proceed that far, but of course if you settle out of court, that opportunity will be lost as the case never goes in front of the magistrates.
Before that there is no guarantee. If they consider that they had enough evidence to proceed with taking the case to court without further contribution from you, they don't have to give you another chance to argue your side. This is the same for all companies. If they had felt that they were unsure, they would almost certainly give you an opportunity to explain your side of the story in order to decide whether they had sufficient evidence to proceed but obviously in your case they felt confident that they had sufficient evidence (rightly or wrongly) to proceed.
So they know you won't take the risk of going to court because they can afford losing a small court action but you can't.
Unfortunately true, and same when dealing with many powerful organisations.
Very unfair in my eyes, but just the way things are.
I should apologize for that as it is definitely not the best of me and I'm not proud of it.
This is the first time I am accused of something criminal in my entire life so found it hard to accept. But at the end of the day life is life we all have to carry on.
You don't need to apologise, and don't take the whole matter personally. As I pointed out at the beginning of this thread, it is very easy to fall foul of many parts of railway legislation without even realizing it so don't beat yourself on it.