Section 5(1) RoRA Prosecution

[John Palmer]

In order to start proceedings correctly under the Single Justice Procedure the prosecutor must issue a document charging a person with an offence (the “written charge”) together with either a “Requisition” (a document requiring the accused to attend court to answer the written charge – not applicable in your case) or (as is applicable in your case) a Single Justice Procedure Notice. The chosen combination of these documents must be served on the person concerned and also on the 'designated officer' in the Magistrates Court. This is set out in Section 29 Criminal Justice Act 2003 (https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2003/44/part/4). Various other documents to be served on the accused where the SJP is employed are prescribed in Rule 24.9 of the Criminal Procedure Rules 2020 (https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2020/759/rule/24.9).

From your description it appears that Northern's DRPU may have made a mess of the paperwork by failing to serve upon you the Written Charge that was apparently supposed to have been printed on the reverse of the SJPN but was not. The DRPU have, however, apparently served a copy of that Written Charge upon the designated officer at Doncaster Magistrates Court, as otherwise that court would not have known what charging details to reproduce on the Summons on Referral to Court that gives you notice of the 3rd August hearing. A failure to serve the Written Charge upon you is a serious defect (if you don't receive it, how can you know what offence is alleged against you?) which might be fatal to the prosecution, but I'm far from conversant with the extent to which such errors are retrievable.

In any event, any errors in the paperwork committed by Northern Trains' DRPU may prove to be of no importance if the court accepts a preliminary submission that the company is not a Relevant Prosecutor entitled to use the SJP where the offence charged is not a breach of bylaws, and that the proceedings are in consequence a nullity.

 

[fandroid]

Fairly sure the first time I read 'Regulation of the Railways Act 1889' was when the actual summons arrived.

(edit) Actually it does mention this on the settlement offer.

It's a standard inclusion on that sort of paperwork to mention both the Byelaws and the RoR Act in relation to possible prosecution.

 

[KirkstallOne]

Seems like an absolute catalogue of mistakes and irregularities here:

1) Initiated a Section 5(1) prosecution with a Single Justice Procedure Notice without the authority to do so
2) Failed to serve defendant with a written charge sheet (and statement of facts, or is this part of the charge sheet?)
3) Truncated the charge so it is not apparent that the offence cannot have been committed as defendant gave their name and address on request

Do you suggest I try and obtain a copy of the charge sheet served to the magistrates court? And / or obtain the same from Northern rail? Is it sufficient to just hold tight at the moment and raise all these points at the case management hearing? I have had a potential offer of some free legal assistance from a qualified practitioner but it has not been confirmed yet and I am aware that the court date is rapidly approaching.

 

[Watershed]

I think it would be worthwhile trying to get all the information you can, so that you're not subject to any surprises at the case management hearing.

As mentioned before, I think it may be worthwhile applying for the case to be stayed on the basis that it constitutes an abuse of process. You need to do this at the earliest opportunity (ideally you would have done so before submitting a plea, but that can't be changed now), so it would be worthwhile consulting with a criminal defence solicitor about this, if you don't already have one.

A minor point, but one that you might nevertheless want to raise on the day, is whether the person that represents Northern at the case management hearing has the requisite 'rights of audience' to do so. Many private prosecutors use "case presenters" or other people who have no legal qualifications and thus can only appear in Court with the Judge's permission.

Given the numerous legal errors and irregularities which Northern have committed here, I think this strengthens the argument in favour of them having to be represented by someone legally qualified, i.e. a solicitor or barrister. Obviously on the one hand that might increase the costs at stake, but on the other hand, it might mean that they finally realise they are on a hiding to nothing and drop the matter rather than trying to see it through to a hearing.

It's also important that you apply for legal aid, even though you are almost certainly going to be ineligible for it due to the "minor" nature of the case. This is because you can only recover your legal costs if you've applied for legal aid (even if that application is rejected).

 

[KirkstallOne]

I just spoke to the magistrates court enquiries line requesting a copy of the Single Justice Procedure Notice that Northern Rail sent them to initiate the prosecution. They confirmed that they were in possession of these but insisted that these were merely 'a copy of what you were sent'. I requested a 'copy of the copy' but they said they were unable to supply this and I should ask Northern to provide them again and see if there is any discrepancy with what I was originally provided.

 

[John Palmer]

In my post 29 I referred to the 'Summons on Referral to Court' containing a verbatim repetition of the prosecution's Statement of Facts. My apologies, I think this is more likely to be a repetition of the wording of the 'Written Charge' that should have appeared on the reverse of the SJPN but was omitted from your copy. The 'Statement of Facts' that forms “the material ... on which the prosecutor relies to set out the facts of the offence” (Criminal Procedure Rule 24.9(c)(ii)) may well consist of nothing more than the RPI's witness statement, an image of which you have already uploaded.

Please correct this if it's wrong, but the sequence of events seems to be:

• Northern Trains DRPU served on you a Single Justice Procedure Notice that omitted the Written Charge that should have been printed on its reverse;
• The DRPU also served a form enabling you to plead not guilty to a charge of which, as yet, you had no details;
• You filed the form giving notice of your 'not guilty' plea. In your first post here you indicated that you completed this form by stating that your defence was based on the fact that the ticket machine wasn't working;
• On receipt of the form notifying the intention to plead not guilty, the magistrates court issued the Summons on Referral to Court. This contained at its foot what is likely to have been the wording of the Written Charge as received by the court from the DRPU, and which you should have received with the SJPN but did not. It seems probable that you first received details of the charge against you when you received that notice from the court.
  

The implication is that you gave details of your anticipated defence at a time when you weren't aware of the nature of the charge brought against you. It turns out that the fact that the ticket machine wasn't working is not a good defence to an allegation that you breached Section 5(1) RoRA. That's not your fault if the Written Charge wasn't served on you when it should have been, as you could not have known what defences were available to you. However, you should tell the court at the case management hearing that you are raising a different defence to the charge now that you know what it is. That defence will be that you were not in default of Section 5(1) because you provided on request your name and address, and this is one of the ways specified in Section 5(1) that avoids such default. If the Written Charge made no mention of that way of avoiding default under Section 5(1), this will be a good opportunity to draw that misleading omission to the court's attention. Of course, if the court has already upheld a submission that the proceedings are a nullity for having been unlawfully commenced, all issues surrounding the nature of the charge and the nature of your defence become irrelevant.

The response to the request you made to the magistrates court suggests that it is not alive to the possibility that what the court received is not the same as what you received from the DRPU. You should follow the court's recommendation that you apply to the DRPU for copies of what it originally sent to you so that you can compare it with what you first received. That may or may not bring to light the Written Charge. If the DRPU declines to provide you with such copies you will be fully justified in raising at the case management hearing the issue of whether any Written Charge has been served upon you, since, if it has not, that is a departure from the SJP rules that is potentially fatal to the prosecution case. In those circumstances it would only be possible to establish the position by comparison at the hearing of the documentation the prosecution filed at court with the documentation you originally received.

When requesting Northern's DRPU to provide copies of the SJP documentation, you can also raise the request for confirmation that it is no longer pursuing payment of the penalty fare (a civil debt) because it is now treating the matter as the subject of criminal proceedings. I would not be surprised to discover that the sums Northern are seeking to recover via those proceedings, including the fare payment of which it alleges has been avoided, are set out in the same document as the Written Charge the DRPU has apparently failed to send to you.

I agree with @Watershed's point about making an application for legal aid, but if you are fortunate enough to secure professional representation on a pro bono basis there will, by definition, be no legal charges for which you can be compensated by a costs order – costs are only payable in respect of expense actually incurred.

Sorry, long post; hope it is helpful.

 

[KirkstallOne]

@John Palmer yes that is an accurate description of the sequence of events. It seems pretty clear the charge should be on the reverse of the SJPN I uploaded. I was very confused as to what I was being accused of and so just restated as my defence what I believed to be a valid excuse for not having a ticket in a penalty fare area which I had assumed to be the essence of the charge.

Inspection of the original notice in court would confirm that the reverse is indeed blank despite the clear statement on the front page that details of the charge are overleaf.

I will seek a copy of the SJP documents from Northern DRPU directly. I emailed them yesterday to seek the status of the Penalty Fare but have had no response. I imagine the charge sheet is largely similar to the one on the thread highlighted here involving a foreign student convicted of the same offence due to not responding and this seems to indicate that they regard failure to pay the penalty fare as constituting the S5 (1) offence. I suppose if they said the fare is still due it would raise the interesting possibility of paying it at any point between now and the court date?

Your contributions and those of others have been very helpful I really do appreciate it. After a lot of reading and stress I feel like I have a good grasp of the points of law involved and what the next steps are. Beyond the primary aim of avoiding a criminal conviction, I do hope this process results in some kind of complications for Northern in pursuing these types of cases in future.

I have already written to my MP highlighting what I believe to be reasonable questions around Northern’s use of the law and its prosecutorial powers.

I will ensure I keep everyone who has spent so much time assisting me updated on the progress of this case.

***UPDATE***

Still no reply to a request midday Tuesday to DRPU for the status of the Penalty Fare. Seems like this could be important to the case, as they can hardly say I have failed to pay the fare if there is still an option to pay it? Mainly though I want them to confirm it is cancelled so any possible civil action is eliminated.

Also, can I not request ‘a copy of the copy’ of the documents served to me by DRPU directly from the court officer under 5.7 (4) of the procedure rules?

The Criminal Procedure Rules 2020

The Criminal Procedure Rules 2020:consolidate the Criminal Procedure Rules 2015, S.I. 2015/1490, with the amendments made by S.I. 2016/120, 2016/705, 2017/144, 2017/282, 2017/755, 2017/915, 2018/132, 2018/847, 2019/143, 2019/1119 and 2020/32; andinclude the further amendments listed beneath.

www.legislation.gov.uk

 

[John Palmer]

***UPDATE***

Still no reply to a request midday Tuesday to DRPU for the status of the Penalty Fare. Seems like this could be important to the case, as they can hardly say I have failed to pay the fare if there is still an option to pay it? Mainly though I want them to confirm it is cancelled so any possible civil action is eliminated.

Also, can I not request ‘a copy of the copy’ of the documents served to me by DRPU directly from the court officer under 5.7 (4) of the procedure rules?

The Criminal Procedure Rules 2020

The Criminal Procedure Rules 2020:consolidate the Criminal Procedure Rules 2015, S.I. 2015/1490, with the amendments made by S.I. 2016/120, 2016/705, 2017/144, 2017/282, 2017/755, 2017/915, 2018/132, 2018/847, 2019/143, 2019/1119 and 2020/32; andinclude the further amendments listed beneath.

www.legislation.gov.uk

Yes you can, but you are working from the original version of the Criminal Procedure Rules, which have since been amended. The latest available version of the 'Access to Information in Court Records' section can be found at https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2020/759/part/5/crossheading/3.

The relevant provisions now appear to be Rules 5.8 and 5.9. It is mandatory for the court to supply you with certain items of information you request in your capacity as a party to the case; these are described in Rule 5.9, but the scope of the expression “a direction or order made or warrant issued” is a little opaque and may not extend to all the documents that are required to be served on the defendant when the SJP is employed. For this reason it would be as well to put a written request to the Clerk to the Doncaster Justices for the copies you need with an explanation of why you need them. This might take the following form (subject any adaptation you think appropriate):

(Heading as on court papers)

“In the above case a Single Justice Procedure Notice has been sent to me that contains the words 'Details of the charge are overleaf'. No such details appear on the reverse of that form and I am not aware of any such details appearing on any of the documents sent to me by the prosecution. I therefore wish to clarify whether a Written Charge has been served upon me, and whether a copy of any such Written Charge has been given to the Court; if so I wish to obtain a copy of the copy Written Charge held by the Court as I shall otherwise lack knowledge of the charge I face.

“I have also received from the prosecution a copy witness statement together with its exhibit but no other document setting out the material on which the prosecutor relies to set out the facts of the alleged offence. I therefore also request copies of any material other than the witness statement and its exhibit that comes within the scope of Criminal Procedure Rule 24.9(ii).

“I make these requests under Criminal Procedure Rules 5.8 and, so far as it is applicable to my case, 5.9, and enclose payment of the anticipated fee of £6.00 for supply of the copies requested.”

 

[Hodgs0]

Thanks for this, a lot to digest in that thread but it does seem a very similar situation - a prosecution has been initiated using S5(1) which is one of the only options after a penalty fare has been appealed. Presumably this course was decided after my refusal to pay the penalty fare which seems to run entirely counter to the spirit of the penalty fares regulations.

Very glad Sarah got the prosecution dropped. I am happy to fight this one, stubbornness is one of my many faults and I can live with a criminal record in the worst case.

Thanks for this, a lot to digest in that thread but it does seem a very similar situation - a prosecution has been initiated using S5(1) which is one of the only options after a penalty fare has been appealed. Presumably this course was decided after my refusal to pay the penalty fare which seems to run entirely counter to the spirit of the penalty fares regulations.

Very glad Sarah got the prosecution dropped. I am happy to fight this one, stubbornness is one of my many faults and I can live with a criminal record in the worst case.

They did drop the case against me stating a case of no evidence. If you wish to contact me I would be happy to help you. I’m just about to lodge a complaint about the whole unlawful process to the rail odbusman. If you go on their twitter I’ve pointed out their illegality’s to them on two of their posts this week . I’ve highlighted some useful links on there. If you want to contact me privately I’d be happy to help you. Sarah.

I can't immediately see any problem with your draft letter to the Northern DRPU, but it would be helpful to see exactly what the prosecution is claiming from you. This information probably appears on the reverse of the SJP Notice already posted, or on some other document in what's referred to on the SJPN as 'the attached pack'.

I assume that on the 'Summons on Referral to Court' the court has simply repeated verbatim the prosecution's Statement of Facts that should form part of the SJPN or its accompanying papers. By doing so it will have perpetuated any failure by the prosecution to set out the “or give the officer or servant his name and address” component of Section 5(1) RoRA in that Statement of Facts, thereby extending any obfuscation of the nature of the offence alleged that may have been created by the prosecution's wording. So it may also be helpful to see how the prosecution worded the Statement of Facts on its SJPN.

It would indeed be interesting to learn Northern Trains' response to your suggested FOI request. When a penalty fare is issued the recipient must give his name and address, so logically the circumstances giving rise to a Section 5(1) offence should not exist. That being the case, the question of whether there was a successful appeal against the penalty fare may be superflous. Of greater significance is the number of convictions for a Section 5(1) offence in cases where a penalty fare had also been issued, as this would be sufficient indication that such convictions may have wrongful to warrant further retrospective enquiry.

I'm glad to hear that you are formally seeking professional legal advice in connection with the forthcoming hearing on 3rd August. I doubt that there have been many previous challenges to a railway operator's recourse to the Single Justice Procedure to prosecute a RoRA offence, or that the giving of name and address in connection with a penalty fare's issue is commonly used as a defence to a Section 5(1) RoRA prosecution. You are, therefore, likely to be entering largely uncharted legal depths where assistance from a current criminal law practitioner could prove highly beneficial.

They’re a private company so they don’t have to respond to FOI.

 

[island]

They’re a private company so they don’t have to respond to FOI.

That’s incorrect. Northern are run by the DFT OLR and are subject to FOI.

 

[KirkstallOne]

Just an update for everyone, after a couple of letters from my lawyer pointing out the lack of authority to charge S5.(1) via an SJPN, and requesting the missing charge sheet, they reviewed the original offence and made an out of court settlement offer of £3.50 which I have somewhat reluctantly accepted.

Sarah I will probably be in touch at some point to compare notes as I plan to take further action on this as well but that is probably a discussion for a new thread.

 

[Hodgs0]

Just an update for everyone, after a couple of letters from my lawyer pointing out the lack of authority to charge S5.(1) via an SJPN, and requesting the missing charge sheet, they reviewed the original offence and made an out of court settlement offer of £3.50 which I have somewhat reluctantly accepted.

Sarah I will probably be in touch at some point to compare notes as I plan to take further action on this as well but that is probably a discussion for a new thread.

I’ve just drafted my complaint to the rail odbusman & transport passenger watch dog. Im sorry you have had to probably pay for your legal expenses when the whole process was unlawful.

 

[KirkstallOne]

If you go on their twitter I’ve pointed out their illegality’s to them on two of their posts this week

I did see this, and noticed they (merseyrail) had deleted their original tweet. I hope you have screenshots! What did it say… I am guessing that not paying your penalty fare is a criminal offence.

I’ve just drafted my complaint to the rail odbusman & transport passenger watch dog. Im sorry you have had to probably pay for your legal expenses when the whole process was unlawful.

Luckily a very generous denizen of these fine forums offered me some pro-bono representation.

 

[Hodgs0]

I did see this, and noticed they (merseyrail) had deleted their original tweet. I hope you have screenshots! What did it say… I am guessing that not paying your penalty fare is a criminal offence.


Luckily a very generous denizen of these fine forums offered me some pro-bono representation.

Hahaha I hadn’t noticed they deleted tweet but I do have screenshots lucky for me.

 

[John Palmer]

@KirkstallOne, delighted to hear that you have been able to agree a resolution that pre-empts a trial. The UK justice system is far from infallible, so finding a means for ending your personal exposure to possible conviction was the right way to go, regardless of the apparent strength of your available defences.

I take it that the agreed settlement restores you to the position in which you tried to place yourself when seeking to purchase your ticket immediately after alighting at Leeds. I can only imagine how galling it must be to have been put through the stress and inconvenience caused by Northern Rail's actions in order to reach that position.

I'm also glad to hear that @Hodgs0 has been in touch regarding her ongoing efforts to hold Merseyrail to account. So far as prosecutorial excesses by train operators are concerned it's clear there is more than one 'bad apple', and I wish both of you well in your endeavours to hold them to account – please keep us posted as to progress.

Would be interested to see images of @Hodgs0's Twitter exchanges with Merseyrail.

 

[Nottingham59]

Taken together, the Preston case and the present case raise the possibility that Northern Trains Ltd is improperly making systematic resort to prosecution by SJPN for a Section 5(1) RoRA offence where a penalty fare has been appealed and remains unpaid.

I know that the judicial system is desperately under resourced, but would it be possible to interest the CPS or even the DPP in abuse of process by organisations with private prosecution rights?

I am certainly interested in taking further steps to prevent Norther Rail from abusing the Penalty Fare process in future.

Sarah I will probably be in touch at some point to compare notes as I plan to take further action on this as well but that is probably a discussion for a new thread.

I'm also glad to hear that @Hodgs0 has been in touch regarding her ongoing efforts to hold Merseyrail to account. So far as prosecutorial excesses by train operators are concerned it's clear there is more than one 'bad apple', and I wish both of you well in your endeavours to hold them to account

If either @KirkstallOne or @Hodgs0 still wish to hold these prosecuting authorities to account, then one possible avenue would be to make a complaint to the Solicitors Regulation Authority about the individual solicitors within those organisations who initiated these prosecutions, on the grounds that:
(1) Their improper actions have brought the legal profession into disrepute.
(2) By truncating the description of the alleged offences ("...failed .... to produce a ticket showing that your fare was paid ... contrary to section 5(1) of Regulation of Railways Act 1889"), they appear to have deliberately attempted to mislead the court.
And (3) if they didn't realise that giving a name and address meant that no offence under S5(1) had occured, then they are incompetent.
The SRA website helpfully lists the regulated solicitors employed by Northern Trains Ltd (SRA number 836296); presumably they hold the same information about Merseyrail. See www.sra.org.uk/solicitors-register

And if either of you wish to go nuclear, then it seems to me that prosecuting someone you knew had provided a correct name and address at the first time of asking, and therefore you knew or should have known to be innocent, is an attempt to pervert the course of justice. That makes this a matter for the police.

 

[KirkstallOne]

@Nottingham59 thanks, I suspect that the two lawyers shown for Northern have nothing to do with the prosecutions though, it is just the rogue DRPU department. Certainly in the merseyrail case there was a long series of exchanges with someone trying to argue points of law who wasn’t legally qualified.

However, it may be worth an email to Northern’s head of legal pointing out the unlawful behaviour of the DRPU.

In terms of nuclear options, seems to me they are sailing very close to the tort of ‘misfeasance in public office’. Public office is pretty much anything affecting the public, and they seem to meet the ‘reckless disregard for the harm’ their unlawful actions are likely to cause element. Seems their defence would have to be a combination of ignorance, incompetence and coincidence!

 

[Nottingham59]

it is just the rogue DPRU department.

Someone in Northern will have the professional qualifications which gives them the right to bring these matters before the court. That individual will be a barrister or solicitor. And they're supposed to take responsibility for whatever is done or said in their company's name. I don't know how you find their names. Perhaps @John Palmer can advise?

 

[MadMac]

@Nottingham59 thanks, I suspect that the two lawyers shown for Northern have nothing to do with the prosecutions though, it is just the rogue DRPU department. Certainly in the merseyrail case there was a long series of exchanges with someone trying to argue points of law who wasn’t legally qualified.

Wasn’t the solicitor acting for Merseyrail someone actually “contracted in” from a Local Authority who essentially admitted that she “was only following orders” and wasn’t familiar with the railway laws?

 

[KirkstallOne]

Someone in Northern will have the professional qualifications which gives them the right to bring these matters before the court. That individual will be a barrister or solicitor. And they're supposed to take responsibility for whatever is done or said in their company's name. I don't know how you find their names. Perhaps @John Palmer can advise?

I am just not sure that this is this case. My understanding is basically anyone in Northern can issue these SJPNs. I suspect that some legal knowledge was used at some point to devise the strategy of essentially frightening people into paying civil debts by threat of criminal prosecution, particularly in how similar the merseyrail and Northern cases are, and I do intend to try and found out who, but I am sure they are quite remote from the actual day to day operation of the DRPU.

Wasn’t the solicitor acting for Merseyrail someone actually “contracted in” from a Local Authority who essentially admitted that she “was only following orders” and wasn’t familiar with the railway laws?

I believe this person was just some sort of council admin staff. It was pointed out here that they are only supposed to be allowed ‘rights of audience’ in the court on a case by case basis but in practice they are always given it unless there are significant points of law in dispute.

I guess i would just add here that if anyone in Northern DRPU is reading this thread, and is uncomfortable with how things operate there, you have plenty of protections as a whistleblower!

 

[furlong]

No trained and qualified legal professional would act in this way - the errors of law are far too basic and would deservedly put their status at risk.
In my view, the problems are that (1) the train companies are trying to do this on the cheap and failing to pay for properly-qualified staff; (2) the court system is in such a mess at the moment that basic checks are getting forgotten; and (3) the bodies that should be monitoring and regulating this are taking the line that if they choose not to look then they can't see any problems so everything must be working fine!

 

[KirkstallOne]

@furlong I would agree except that it seems too devious to be adequately explained by incompetence. They know enough law to carefully read the penalty fares act and realise s.5(1) offences aren’t listed, but not enough to read the section on civil debts. Enough knowledge to misrepresent the elements of the offence on the (non-existent) charge sheet with almost identical wording to the merseyrail case, but not enough to appreciate that giving your name and address is a defence. At every step the mistakes made increase the likelihood of obtaining a settlement without going to court or incurring legal or other expenses. Quite the coincidence.

 

[Watershed]

Someone in Northern will have the professional qualifications which gives them the right to bring these matters before the court. That individual will be a barrister or solicitor. And they're supposed to take responsibility for whatever is done or said in their company's name. I don't know how you find their names. Perhaps @John Palmer can advise?

Unfortunately, that is not the case. There is sadly no requirement for a solicitor to be involved in starting Court proceedings, or even (upon the perfunctory grant of "rights of audience") in the proceedings themselves.

Were there solicitors involved, this would be a degree of incompetence - if not deliberate malpractice - that would put their professional status at risk.

There needs to be a root and branch review of the way that TOCs handle ticketing irregularities, because there's all sorts of unacceptable and possibly unlawful stuff going on.

 

[furlong]

@furlong I would agree except that it seems too devious to be adequately explained by incompetence

Well it certainly appears pretty convenient that by using apparently unqualified people they can both save money and get away with engaging in practices that on the face of it appear pretty dodgy but enable them to "recover" additional revenue! An independent inquiry is long overdue, but who would want to be seen as siding with fare dodgers to perform that? When (if) GBR comes along, there's always a possibility something useful will drop out of the inevitable restructuring. We've seen how even appeals panels for penalty fares have convinced themselves they're free to disregard parts of the legal framework they operate under - a similar story of undermining the process by paying panellists peanuts and failing to provide legal support.

 

[fandroid]

I would guess that someone legally qualified in Northern has "overview of court cases " or somesuch in their job description. Even if they have no direct line responsibility for those who carry out the work. It's the way of big organisations to cover every eventuality like that, so a scapegoat can be readily put forward to carry any blame for big problems.

Further researches on the register and elsewhere might well identify someone lumbered with that role.

 

[Haywain]

I would guess that someone legally qualified in Northern has "overview of court cases " or somesuch in their job description.

See post #53.

 

[Puffing Devil]

For many years, prosecutions have been conducted in the Magistrates Court by "Associate Prosecutors" with very little legal training.

 

[fandroid]

See post #53.

Yes. I was responding to that very post. I think my whole post explains what I meant. Someone is likely to have theoretical responsibility for legal actions even if they're not directly involved

 

[KirkstallOne]

In my case the prosecutor is apparently the Payroll Manager, still not sure who authorised the charge as I have never seen a charge sheet!

In the Merseyrail case, the person who authorised the charge was the (now former) 'prosecutions manager'. The prosecutor at the case management hearing was someone from Sefton council, not clear exactly who this was but it seems they had no authority to say anything but, we will proceed with the prosecution.

The Merseyrail prosecutions manager certainly did prosecute on occasion as there are various local news article quoting her in the magistrates court.

 

[KirkstallOne]

*** Update ***

Just had the court case. I went because I had not had any confirmation that Northern had withdrawn the case, and I spoke to the court on Tuesday and they said as far as they knew it was going ahead. Also I wanted to flag up all the irregularities if I got a chance.

Before I got called, a Northern representative came out and said they will be withdrawing the case. I said, why didn’t you tell me or the court before now and he said they always just withdraw on the day. I asked him if he was the prosecutor and after some obfuscation he said no. I said, well I will be attending anyway.

I got called in after that, the prosecutor was going to withdraw the charge as the first step but I said I wanted to speak first.

I said three things:

1) that they had no authority to charge RoRA offences via an SJP notice, quoting the name of the relevant legislation and saying they are only allowed to charge bye-law offences
2) that the charge was misleading, reading out the charge on the charge sheet and the RoRA legislation and pointing out that their own evidence shows I gave my name and address
3) that Res Judicata should apply here - non payment of penalty fares is a civil debt, and the issuing of a penalty fare should have closed the door to a criminal charge as the penalty has already been decided, which seems to have been the intention of the penalty fares legislation and is stated explicitly in the Explanatory Memorandum.

Then the prosecutor stood up and said because I had pled not guilty, they reviewed the appeal and decided that I shouldn’t have been issued with a penalty fare (not my reading of what happened). I had paid the original fare now and so they were withdrawing the charge.

They did then ask me if I wanted to say anything else, I probably should have said I would invite the court to declare the case a nullity and if so there is no charge to withdraw, but I didn’t say anything.

The bench then said the case was withdrawn.

There were dozens of northern rail cases listed at Doncaster today, only one other defendant had shown up so would be interested what all the others are.

Anyway, thanks again to everyone for their advice on this. I will be making a subject access request and some FOI requests now the court case is out of the way.