Train Investigations Limited (TIL) - court threats

scottinthesky · 19 Jan 2020

Hi,

I travelled from York to Birmingham New Street back in October. I bought a ticket using the Trainline app shortly before travel and saved the electronic ticket to my phone. At York station the app gave me an option to get a collection reference to print a paper ticket at a machine instead of using the app. I generally prefer hard copies so I tried to do this. The app gave me an error message that stated there was a fault and I could not proceed and to use the electronic tickets instead.

I boarded a Cross Country (XCT) train and the Tain Manager scanned my ticket but said there was a problem and it "wouldn't scan." She did some more tapping and said the tickets had been cancelled. I hadn't had any e-mails or messages from Trainline so this was confusing but I showed her the receipts in my e-mail inbox and checked my banking app to see if the charge had been reversed, neither had happened. She said it was likely a Trainline systems fault and printed off a gate exit ticket for me to use at Birmingham. She also asked me to fill in a personal details form in case they needed to contact me in the future, which I did.

In December I got a letter from TIL. They said they had "substantial evidence" of my intentional plan to travel as a fare evader and they would shortly issue a court summons. This was very stressful as I hadn't heard anything from XCT and the charge for the tickets had been fully processed. I sent a copy of my tickets, printed from the app, along with my credit card statement and receipt. I also sent their letter to XCT to ask what was going on and I contacted Trainline with the same question. TIL wrote back with a very unpleasant letter saying they had "no intention of accepting my additional evidence and would shortly proceed to court." They did not ask for a penalty fare or other fee. In the meantime Trainline wrote back and said XCT are not allowed to ask for payment of tickets after the fact and confirmed that the tickets were not cancelled. They said they wrote to XCT to explain this and to ask for an explanation. XCT have denied every hearing from Trainline.

I wrote to TIL and told them after checking with my bank and with Trainline, they had no evidence I was a fare evader and that I would gladly present this evidence in court. They wrote back with an oddly defensive letter saying they were "confident in their evidence" and they see "no reason they shouldn't proceed to ask for a court summons." XCT have said they believe I intentionally did not pay my fare and its their policy to prosecute through TIL rather than recover fares. The frustrating thing is that I don't have a debt - I paid the fare and have proof of it. TIL seem to drip-feed information rather than presenting all of their evidence at once - in their last letter they sent me a printed copy of a photo the train manager had taken of her hand-held device that does clearly show 'Ticket refunded' on my ticket. She did not say this at the time and did not use the word 'refunded' - even if she had, I showed her my banking app that showed a debit of £70.

Now I'm stuck in the middle of TIL, XCT and Trainline. Trainline say the ticket was paid for and used and have told XCT, who deny they've heard from Trainline. TIL keep writing to say they are not interested in my evidence and they'll issue a court summons.

Does anyone have any advice about where to go from here?

RailUK Forums

thejuggler · 19 Jan 2020

For now ignore them.

They have threatened with Court, if papers arrive they are serious. You can then gather evidence and file your defence.

BTW don't use Trainline. As you have found it can lead to significant problems.

gray1404 · 19 Jan 2020

This is very concerning. This is not the first time that we have hard of a female Cross Country Train Manager taking a passengers details and then those details not being used for the purpose for which they were gathered. This is unlawful. If a passengers details are taken so that they can be reported for prosecution then the customer should be informed of that. If the customers details are taken for the purpose of a ticketing irregularity report then that is a separate internal matter. It seams to be that if a passenger has details taken for any reason on Cross Country they, by default, receive a letter from Transport Investigations Limited, who do not engage in any meaningful dialogue. They ignore procedure and simply send threatening letters.

The good news is that you have it confirmed by the ticket retailer that your ticket was not refunded. You should write back to TIL again restating that your ticket was not refunded and enclose again all the evidence you have showing this. For example, a copy of your ticket in the app, the money coming out of your bank and the confirmation you have received from Trainline confirming your ticket has NOT been refunded. As such you have paid your fare and, by the Train Managers own omission, there may have been a technical problem with the systems being used. However, that in an internal matter for the railway to sort out if the device being used by the Train Manager is showing incorrect information. I would state that you have paid your fare for your journey, presented a valid ticket on board and have provided evidence of this post event. I would expressly state you have provided confirmation from the retailer that the ticket was not refunded and the information the train manager has was incorrect. I would also state that you would therefore defend any charges.

Given you have engaged with Cross Country Customer Services already, I would also contact them again. I would explain the situation above and attach your evidence. I would stress the fact that you showed a valid ticket on board and that the retailer is also backing you up that the ticket was NOT refunded.

If Cross Country do not respond stating that they have dropped this case ask them for a Deadlock letter and take your complaint to the Rail Ombudsman.

It is not uncommon at all for people to have to send several letters to Transport Investigations Limited saying the time thing time over. They simply ignore whatever a reasonable person offers in mitigation and this is, by no means, any reflection on the strength of your situation, evidence or any indication that you did anything wrong. Rather, it is yet more evidence of their total lack of ability and their continued efforts of sending threatening letters.

ainsworth74 · 19 Jan 2020

Can you get Trainline to give you in writing that the tickets were not cancelled? I feel that is crucial.

Fare-Cop · 19 Jan 2020

gray1404 said:
This is very concerning. This is not the first time that we have hard of a female Cross Country Train Manager taking a passengers details and then those details not being used for the purpose for which they were gathered. This is unlawful. If a passengers details are taken so that they can be reported for prosecution then the customer should be informed of that. If the customers details are taken for the purpose of a ticketing irregularity report then that is a separate internal matter. It seams to be that if a passenger has details taken for any reason on Cross Country they, by default, receive a letter from Transport Investigations Limited.

If a revenue staff member identifies a problem with an apparently invalid ticket they may take the details of that person for further investigation. They are simply required to tell the traveller why they are taking details, for example: 'You are travelling without a valid ticket, Railway Byelaw 18 (or whatever is the relevant matter) requires you to have a valid ticket, so I need to take your details.' That member of staff does not decide whether or not prosecution may follow. National Railway Byelaw 23 (2005) make it an obligation on the traveller to provide that information when asked in such circumstances.

If that further investigation by the TOC reveals further evidence of an offence, the TOC may either deal with it through an in-house prosecution team (if they have one), or, may forward the case to their prosecuting agents. I have little doubt that if any case proceeds further then the prosecution will comply with the Criminal Investigation & Procedure Act (1996) and produce their evidence in due time and in accordance with the rules.

Where there is evidence of an offence in which a traveller may be implicated like this it is wrong to describe any case as an 'internal matter' and to suggest the process 'is unlawful'. There would have to be a great deal more evidence of the whole conversation between the traveller (the OP) and the on-train staff member before such a sweeping generalisation could be made.

XCT don't have an in-house team, but appear to have forwarded this to their agents. TIL (who have been around for over 20 years) are the agents engaged by XCT and it seems a growing number of other TOCs too.

In addition to the initial purchase record, I strongly suggest that you seek hard copy evidence from your bank/card provider that there was no refund to your account.

ainsworth74 · 19 Jan 2020

Fare-Cop said:
In addition to the initial purchase record, I strongly suggest that you seek hard copy evidence from your bank/card provider that there was no refund to your account.

Agreed. That would also be useful.

I would suggest that any reputable firm upon presentation of evidence that a ticket was bought, presented and not cancelled (with two different sources of confirmation of that latter fact) would drop any action as being hopeless and a waste of both their time, the time of the passenger and the courts. And armed with such information I would be responding very robustly to TIL indeed.

Though that is just my opinion. I'm not a lawyer at the end of the day!

WesternLancer · 19 Jan 2020

scottinthesky said:
Hi,

I travelled from York to Birmingham New Street back in October. I bought a ticket using the Trainline app shortly before travel and saved the electronic ticket to my phone. At York station the app gave me an option to get a collection reference to print a paper ticket at a machine instead of using the app. I generally prefer hard copies so I tried to do this. The app gave me an error message that stated there was a fault and I could not proceed and to use the electronic tickets instead.

I boarded a Cross Country (XCT) train and the Tain Manager scanned my ticket but said there was a problem and it "wouldn't scan." She did some more tapping and said the tickets had been cancelled. I hadn't had any e-mails or messages from Trainline so this was confusing but I showed her the receipts in my e-mail inbox and checked my banking app to see if the charge had been reversed, neither had happened. She said it was likely a Trainline systems fault and printed off a gate exit ticket for me to use at Birmingham. She also asked me to fill in a personal details form in case they needed to contact me in the future, which I did.

In December I got a letter from TIL. They said they had "substantial evidence" of my intentional plan to travel as a fare evader and they would shortly issue a court summons. This was very stressful as I hadn't heard anything from XCT and the charge for the tickets had been fully processed. I sent a copy of my tickets, printed from the app, along with my credit card statement and receipt. I also sent their letter to XCT to ask what was going on and I contacted Trainline with the same question. TIL wrote back with a very unpleasant letter saying they had "no intention of accepting my additional evidence and would shortly proceed to court." They did not ask for a penalty fare or other fee. In the meantime Trainline wrote back and said XCT are not allowed to ask for payment of tickets after the fact and confirmed that the tickets were not cancelled. They said they wrote to XCT to explain this and to ask for an explanation. XCT have denied every hearing from Trainline.

I wrote to TIL and told them after checking with my bank and with Trainline, they had no evidence I was a fare evader and that I would gladly present this evidence in court. They wrote back with an oddly defensive letter saying they were "confident in their evidence" and they see "no reason they shouldn't proceed to ask for a court summons." XCT have said they believe I intentionally did not pay my fare and its their policy to prosecute through TIL rather than recover fares. The frustrating thing is that I don't have a debt - I paid the fare and have proof of it. TIL seem to drip-feed information rather than presenting all of their evidence at once - in their last letter they sent me a printed copy of a photo the train manager had taken of her hand-held device that does clearly show 'Ticket refunded' on my ticket. She did not say this at the time and did not use the word 'refunded' - even if she had, I showed her my banking app that showed a debit of £70.

Now I'm stuck in the middle of TIL, XCT and Trainline. Trainline say the ticket was paid for and used and have told XCT, who deny they've heard from Trainline. TIL keep writing to say they are not interested in my evidence and they'll issue a court summons.

Does anyone have any advice about where to go from here?

Welcome to the forum and good luck with this, feel free to come back for more advice as things develop. The advice above is well worth you pursuing. Keep hard copies and obtain the evidence suggested above as others have set out.

_toommm_ · 20 Jan 2020

Please excuse me if I'm speaking out of turn, but I'm sure with Transport for Wales that TiL pass their findings back to TFw, who then prosecute themselves. Other threads have found much more success pleading with the company not to prosecute.

There is absolutely no need to plead of course in this case, but if the info gets passed back to XC, could it be that they will be able to see the facts more clearly than prosecution-happy TiL do?

221129 · 20 Jan 2020

gray1404 said:
This is unlawful.

No it isn't.

221129 · 20 Jan 2020

gray1404 said:
presented a valid ticket on board

But the OP didn't produce a valid ticket on board.

cuccir · 21 Jan 2020

221129 said:
But the OP didn't produce a valid ticket on board.

That's questionable; they presented it but the ticket inspector wasn't able to check it's validity, due to a technical fault on behalf of either the Trainline or CrossCountry. Either way, this is only relevant if TIL/XC wanted to prosecute under the Byelaw 18(2). But the threat at the moment seems to be for prosecution for intending to evade a fare:

scottinthesky said:
ey said they had "substantial evidence" of my intentional plan to travel as a fare evader and they would shortly issue a court summons

scottinthesky said:
Trainline wrote back and said XCT are not allowed to ask for payment of tickets after the fact and confirmed that the tickets were not cancelled.

Presuming that scottinthesky has the evidence from the above quote in particular, how that could succeed.

In the unlikely event the a prosecution under Byelaw 18(2) was attempted, I'd strongly suggest that scottinthesky should contact local media, his local MP, and management of CrossCountry Trains and the Trainline; but I think such a prosecution is unlikely.

scottinthesky · 21 Jan 2020

Hi everyone,

Thanks so much for all of your input, I really appreciate it. I hadn't thought to contact my bank to get written evidence from them about the absence of a refund - I've written to them today and ask if they'll supply it.
Interestingly, I note on XC's website they say that Trainline is their exclusive ticket issuer - so even if I'd purchased a ticket directly from their website or app, it's processed by Trainline. You'd think they'd have better comms between each other if they're used to working together.
I note from XC's T&C that decisions to prosecute are made by their own Head of Revenue following investigation by TiL. I'm in the process of writing to him directly with all of my evidence, with a note that I won't be persevering with them and will see them in court with the same evidence if they continue to pursue it.
Someone above said TIL had been going for 20 years...I'm gobsmacked! Their letters are appalling - full of spelling errors and grammatical mistakes. Their first letter came with some poor photocopies of railway bylaws....I thought it was some sort of phishing hoax to start with :/

Fare-Cop · 21 Jan 2020

scottinthesky said:
I boarded a Cross Country (XCT) train and the Tain Manager scanned my ticket but said there was a problem and it "wouldn't scan." She did some more tapping and said the tickets had been cancelled.

From the above it appears that the Train Manager (TM) only had evidence that you were travelling without a valid ticket. A cancelled, altered or defaced ticket is never valid for travel.

scottinthesky said:
She also asked me to fill in a personal details form in case they needed to contact me in the future, which I did.

This is the correct action. Having advised you that your ticket had been 'cancelled' the TM believed that she had seen evidence of a ticket irregularity contrary to National Railway Byelaws [2005] and she requested your name and address details for further investigation, which you correctly gave.

scottinthesky said:
In December I got a letter from TIL. They said they had "substantial evidence" of my intentional plan to travel as a fare evader and they would shortly issue a court summons.

TIL are the prosecuting agents of CrossCountry (XCT and other TOCs) and XCT have passed the case to them for action. Your wording in the original posts suggests that they are saying they, or XCT, have investigated the matter and believe that they have grounds to continue to prosecution.

scottinthesky said:
TIL wrote back with a very unpleasant letter saying they had "no intention of accepting my additional evidence and would shortly proceed to court." They did not ask for a penalty fare or other fee.

Without seeing your letter to them, or their reply, it is impossible to be sure what evidence they are relying on, but neither TIL or XCT can ask for a Penalty Fare as XCT has no Penalty Fares scheme. They are unlikely to ask for an administrative settlement fee if they believe that they have evidence of a seriously fraudulent action leading to a prosecutable offence

scottinthesky said:
Trainline wrote back and said XCT are not allowed to ask for payment of tickets after the fact

This is completely wrong, Trainline are simply a private business booking agent, they have no authority whatsoever over a TOC or their business.

scottinthesky said:
and confirmed that the tickets were not cancelled. They said they wrote to XCT to explain this and to ask for an explanation. XCT have denied every hearing from Trainline.

If Trainline have indeed written to XCT you should immediately request a copy of the letter that they sent and evidence of who they sent it to at XCT

scottinthesky said:
I wrote to TIL and told them after checking with my bank and with Trainline, they had no evidence I was a fare evader and that I would gladly present this evidence in court. They wrote back with an oddly defensive letter saying they were "confident in their evidence" and they see "no reason they shouldn't proceed to ask for a court summons." XCT have said they believe I intentionally did not pay my fare and its their policy to prosecute through TIL rather than recover fares. The frustrating thing is that I don't have a debt - I paid the fare and have proof of it. TIL seem to drip-feed information rather than presenting all of their evidence at once - in their last letter they sent me a printed copy of a photo the train manager had taken of her hand-held device that does clearly show 'Ticket refunded' on my ticket. She did not say this at the time and did not use the word 'refunded' - even if she had, I showed her my banking app that showed a debit of £70.

Any and all evidence that you can get from your bank / card provider needs to be retained and a hard copy of everything needs to be sent to both XCT and TIL. Send it by signed for post and keep a dated copy for your own records. Clearly, if XCT have sent the case and their comments to TIL advising that they believe the tickets were refunded as per the scan screenshot, the position will not change until irrefutable evidence to the contrary is viewed.

If this continues to Court, all information that the prosecution intends to rely on will be provided in accordance with the Criminal Procedure & Investigations Act (1996). As this is something that happened 4 months ago, a Court date will have to be applied for by the prosecutor within the next 8 weeks or thereabouts, depending on what date in October you made the journey.

scottinthesky said:
Now I'm stuck in the middle of TIL, XCT and Trainline. Trainline say the ticket was paid for and used and have told XCT, who deny they've heard from Trainline. TIL keep writing to say they are not interested in my evidence and they'll issue a court summons.

Does anyone have any advice about where to go from here?

XCT should be easily able to confirm with the relevant merchant services whether a refund was made and if so, whether or not a processing error is evident, which may be the case.

Check again with Trainline, in all the time I was dealing with these sort of matters, my experience was that they were far and away the worst provider for making mistakes.

scottinthesky · 21 Jan 2020

ainsworth74 said:
Can you get Trainline to give you in writing that the tickets were not cancelled? I feel that is crucial.

Yes, they've already supplied that and they said that they've told XC. XC have written to me and said Trainline has not been in touch. TIL wrote and said "in light of this evidence we see no reason why this should not proceed to court."

WesternLancer · 21 Jan 2020

Fare-Cop said:
From the above it appears that the Train Manager (TM) only had evidence that you were travelling without a valid ticket. A cancelled, altered or defaced ticket is never valid for travel.

This is the correct action. Having advised you that your ticket had been 'cancelled' the TM believed that she had seen evidence of a ticket irregularity contrary to National Railway Byelaws [2005] and she requested your name and address details for further investigation, which you correctly gave.

TIL are the prosecuting agents of CrossCountry (XCT and other TOCs) and XCT have passed the case to them for action. Your wording in the original posts suggests that they are saying they, or XCT, have investigated the matter and believe that they have grounds to continue to prosecution.

Without seeing your letter to them, or their reply, it is impossible to be sure what evidence they are relying on, but neither TIL or XCT can ask for a Penalty Fare as XCT has no Penalty Fares scheme. They are unlikely to ask for an administrative settlement fee if they believe that they have evidence of a seriously fraudulent action leading to a prosecutable offence

This is completely wrong, Trainline are simply a private business booking agent, they have no authority whatsoever over a TOC or their business.

If Trainline have indeed written to XCT you should immediately request a copy of the letter that they sent and evidence of who they sent it to at XCT

Any and all evidence that you can get from your bank / card provider needs to be retained and a hard copy of everything needs to be sent to both XCT and TIL. Send it by signed for post and keep a dated copy for your own records. Clearly, if XCT have sent the case and their comments to TIL advising that they believe the tickets were refunded as per the scan screenshot, the position will not change until irrefutable evidence to the contrary is viewed.

If this continues to Court, all information that the prosecution intends to rely on will be provided in accordance with the Criminal Procedure & Investigations Act (1996). As this is something that happened 4 months ago, a Court date will have to be applied for by the prosecutor within the next 8 weeks or thereabouts, depending on what date in October you made the journey.

XCT should be easily able to confirm with the relevant merchant services whether a refund was made and if so, whether or not a processing error is evident, which may be the case.

Check again with Trainline, in all the time I was dealing with these sort of matters, my experience was that they were far and away the worst provider for making mistakes.

Of course one might have thought XC should have done some of this (eg checking if the passengers fare had indeed been refunded) BEFORE their agents sent accusing threats of prosecution to their customer.

In any logical world XC should expect zero repeat customer from this person - and indeed that might be the end result.

I suppose if you want to solve the capacity problem on the railways, accusing your customers of being fraudsters is one way of going about it....

WesternLancer · 21 Jan 2020

scottinthesky said:
Yes, they've already supplied that and they said that they've told XC. XC have written to me and said Trainline has not been in touch. TIL wrote and said "in light of this evidence we see no reason why this should not proceed to court."

seek copies of what Trainline have sent XC if you can.

It's not impossible that they have not told them after all - I'm not sure Trainline's business model involves lots of post purchase customer care. Another reason why posts above indicate not to use them.

As a general rule I would buy a ticket from the train company for which the majority of your journey is with (so in this case for an on line ticket purchase, buying from XC's website might have been better course of action - I know that is water under the bridge of course).

Fare-Cop · 21 Jan 2020

WesternLancer said:
Of course one might have thought XC should have done some of this (eg checking if the passengers fare had indeed been refunded) BEFORE their agents sent accusing threats of prosecution to their customer.

How do we know that XCT haven't made these checks? The OPs post has repeatedly said XCT say Trainline haven't contacted them.

The response from many on these threads will be an automatic default that 'the TOC is in the wrong'. My experience goes back to the 1970s and I retired last year, but since they came on the scene I have seen more Trainline errors than with any other booking engine.

I still have enough of an open mind to consider that this may well simply be an unidentified mistake

scottinthesky · 21 Jan 2020

None of the three organisations involved have been straightforward to deal with. XC take weeks to reply then send a one-line response to say its no longer their responsibility. TIL write back quickly but say they will not take my evidence into account. Trainline are tricky - I'm doing everything in hard copy but they just e-mail randomly. Their e-mails are sometimes difficult to understand and it took three attempts for me to get them to understand the situation. Their website contains no information for their senior team so I haven't been able to escalate it with them. I do have a corporate account with Trainline through work as they're the only agency my company will work with, maybe my internal travel team has a contact...

Fare-Cop · 21 Jan 2020

scottinthesky said:
None of the three organisations involved have been straightforward to deal with. XC take weeks to reply then send a one-line response to say its no longer their responsibility.

I think that's where many forum users completely misunderstand the process. Once a TOC has made up their mind to send a case forward for prosecution, unless there is a very good reason to review they normally leave it to their prosecutors to continue.

I cannot comment on the specifics of any case, none of us can because we are not party to the actual documentation and any evidence on both sides so we cannot say whether they are right or wrong.

I hope that you can obtain and produce the clear evidence that supports your argument

scottinthesky said:
TIL write back quickly but say they will not take my evidence into account.

Well my interpretation is that's pretty straightforward. Do they actually say the words "they will not take (your) evidence into account", or do they say that they don't see anything that changes their view? That means something completely different of course

scottinthesky said:
Trainline are tricky - I'm doing everything in hard copy but they just e-mail randomly. Their e-mails are sometimes difficult to understand and it took three attempts for me to get them to understand the situation. Their website contains no information for their senior team so I haven't been able to escalate it with them. I do have a corporate account with Trainline through work as they're the only agency my company will work with, maybe my internal travel team has a contact...

I think that this description bears out some of my experiences very well and I am amazed that so many still use them, but there we go, it's a matter of choice of course.

jumble · 21 Jan 2020

WesternLancer said:
seek copies of what Trainline have sent XC if you can.

It's not impossible that they have not told them after all - I'm not sure Trainline's business model involves lots of post purchase customer care. Another reason why posts above indicate not to use them.

As a general rule I would buy a ticket from the train company for which the majority of your journey is with (so in this case for an on line ticket purchase, buying from XC's website might have been better course of action - I know that is water under the bridge of course).

Fare-Cop said:
How do we know that XCT haven't made these checks? The OPs post has repeatedly said XCT say Trainline haven't contacted them.

The response from many on these threads will be an automatic default that 'the TOC is in the wrong'. My experience goes back to the 1970s and I retired last year, but since they came on the scene I have seen more Trainline errors than with any other booking engine.

I still have enough of an open mind to consider that this may well simply be an unidentified mistake

Much more likely that the OP is dealing with a buffoon
In what world is it reasonable that the OP has sent the TOC a copy of the letter from Trainline confirming that the tickets were not cancelled and TIL/TOC that they have no intention of taking this into account thereby effectively calling the OP a blatant liar and a fraudster?
Is this not the irrefutable evidence you said they required?
I would hope a magistrate would award a large amount of costs against TIL if they go to court
It is not a stretch to take the view that the TOC/TIL have actually been by Trainline and have decided to ignore that as well.

packermac · 21 Jan 2020

Their webpages seem to imply they try to separate themselves from the TOC and conduct private prosecutions. Sort of implies the TOC's have absolved all responsibity from their spin.
http://transportinvestigations.co.uk/our-services/revenue-protection/fare-recovery-prosecutions/
http://transportinvestigations.co.uk/our-services/revenue-protection/supporting-clients/

scottinthesky · 12 Mar 2020

Hi everyone,

Thanks a lot for all of your input and feedback, it was really really helpful. Thanks also to the person who offered to look at my tickets if I e-mailed them to you...sorry I didn't reply but both TIL and XC wrote to me to say they wouldn't discuss further so I didn't think there was any need.

Today I have received a court summons. It's dated 24 Feb but received today, 12 March. The court date is 23 March...not leaving me much time. They have given me three options:

1) Plead guilty, pay £200 (ticket and court fee) and not appear in court.
2) Plead guilty, not pay £200 and appear in court in person.
3) Plead not guilty and then wait for a new court date so the train manager can appear to give evidence.

The court summons includes a copy of the train manager's written statement. It includes considerable false information. They've also included a copy of the free gate exit pass she issued for me to leave at Birmingham.

My partner thinks I should plead guilty and pay £200 just to make it go away but I am incensed - I paid £70 for the original tickets, which have never been refunded despite what TIL seem to think.

Can anyone recommend a place to go for advice? Or does anyone have any experience in this?

Thanks again
Scott

38Cto15E · 12 Mar 2020

All the very best with this awful mess Scott, myself I would see them in court with a good Criminal Defence Solicitor.

When you win the case you will get nearly all of your costs back.

hkstudent · 12 Mar 2020

scottinthesky said:
Hi everyone,

Thanks a lot for all of your input and feedback, it was really really helpful. Thanks also to the person who offered to look at my tickets if I e-mailed them to you...sorry I didn't reply but both TIL and XC wrote to me to say they wouldn't discuss further so I didn't think there was any need.

Today I have received a court summons. It's dated 24 Feb but received today, 12 March. The court date is 23 March...not leaving me much time. They have given me three options:

1) Plead guilty, pay £200 (ticket and court fee) and not appear in court.
2) Plead guilty, not pay £200 and appear in court in person.
3) Plead not guilty and then wait for a new court date so the train manager can appear to give evidence.

The court summons includes a copy of the train manager's written statement. It includes considerable false information. They've also included a copy of the free gate exit pass she issued for me to leave at Birmingham.

My partner thinks I should plead guilty and pay £200 just to make it go away but I am incensed - I paid £70 for the original tickets, which have never been refunded despite what TIL seem to think.

Can anyone recommend a place to go for advice? Or does anyone have any experience in this?

Thanks again
Scott

I would suggest you to get some way to postpone the court date as you may not have enough time to get legal advise on the issue.
Was the letter sent in a traced mail or just a normal 2nd class mail?

some bloke · 12 Mar 2020

Hello Scott - just to confirm, is the allegation still of intent to avoid a fare?

scottinthesky said:
train manager's written statement. It includes considerable false information.

If you upload photos of the summons and statement with identifying details removed, people on here may be able to give more specific advice. You might upload previous correspondence as well.

scottinthesky said:
They wrote back with an oddly defensive letter saying they were "confident in their evidence"

You could ask them to disclose their evidence, perhaps mentioning that you are unaware of evidence for claims a, b, c... in the statement.

robbeech · 12 Mar 2020

hkstudent said:
I would suggest you to get some way to postpone the court date as you may not have enough time to get legal advise on the issue.
Was the letter sent in a traced mail or just a normal 2nd class mail?

It seems like a not guilty plea would do this but there is no telling for how long.

njr001 · 12 Mar 2020

Scott,
I'm no railway expert just have an interest, if the facts are true as stated, I would be incensed at the response from TIL for not looking at the evidence you have provided. Neither do I have any legal training or experience but I would think you have a good chance of being acquitted. I would suggest you urgently take legal advice, many solicitors will offer a free initial consultation. As others have suggested upload correspondence you have received.

In parallel it may be worth contacting the CEO of the trainline [email protected] to see if they will contact XC & or TIL at a senior level to get the court action dropped in order to prevent reputation damage to their company.

Nick

some bloke · 12 Mar 2020

I'm not sure anyone on here would advise you to plead guilty for something you haven't done, without very specific - perhaps very unusual - reasons.

Do you belong to a trade union? If so, they may offer some free legal advice. You may be covered for this by insurance or as a benefit with a bank account. Some of these benefits might be limited to civil rather than criminal matters.

The Law Society has a search facility for solicitors.
https://solicitors.lawsociety.org.uk/?Pro=True
If you want to use this:
Choose Pro Search.
Exclude "in-house teams...".
For "Areas of practice" on the right, choose "Crime - general".
Put in a postcode/area (where is the court?)
Choose "More search options", then hopefully you'll find a suitably-located firm with Accreditations: "Criminal Litigation".
Having found firms, you could look at their websites or ask them, to find out whether they do free initial consultations.

You could contact Transport Focus, in case they can/will help:

https://www.transportfocus.org.uk/contact/general/

some bloke said:
They sometimes act when prosecution is threatened:
"CrossCountry accepted the evidence from TF, so TIL withdrew the matter."
https://www.railfuture.org.uk/DL2027
"TF contacted the Rail Delivery Group. ...GWR’s prosecutions team accepted the evidence and closed the case."
https://www.railfuture.org.uk/DL2184

Puffing Devil · 12 Mar 2020

some bloke said:
Hello Scott - just to confirm, is the allegation still of intent to avoid a fare?

If you upload photos of the summons and statement with identifying details removed, people on here may be able to give more specific advice. You might upload previous correspondence as well.

Please do this - any fine/sentence is the business of the court not TIL. They cannot specify any settlement. It appears that they are offering to settle before court and bullying you into a plea.

pedr · 13 Mar 2020

From what has been posted it may be that you have misinterpreted the financial implication of pleading guilty. The train company can indicate the compensation it seeks for the allegedly lost fare and its own costs in bringing the prosecution but this is on top of the sentence the court can impose for the offence, which would be decided on by the magistrate.

Does the paperwork say “Single Justice Procedure” on it?

Train Investigations Limited (TIL) - court threats

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