Query on “Report for Prosecution” received

the1341 · 21 Apr 2025

Good evening,

I have a few questions and points of advice about an incident that occurred on Thursday as I was going away for the Easter weekend. The advice provided on this forum looks very detailed and specific so I thought this would be a great place to start!

I was travelling from Wimbledon to Datchet on Thursday. This is a journey I do semi-regularly as my partner lives there. On this occasion, there was a Revenue Protection ‘training drill’ (quote from the RPO) on the bridge between the requisite platforms at Clapham Junction.

I was requested to show my ticket, which I got out, and then my railcard. To my horror, I noted that my railcard had expired on 11-Apr, 6 days prior.

I immediately apologised, realising my error (note, I realise I am in the wrong here for not having a valid railcard!), and straightaway offered to pay the difference (would have been about £3 between railcard and non-railcard as it was a single peak fare) or for a new fare. The RPO then clearly stated that he was “not going to issue a penalty fare here” and took me aside.

I was under the presumption I would be getting a warning and nothing more, but then he started taking my details and I started to panic a bit, especially when he was asking about my eye colours (which I misheard as “fave colour” first)! When I asked why he was taking my details since he had said he wasn’t giving me a penalty fare, he sort of shrugged and said that the “train operator may or may not write to you” and when I pressed what the letter might contain, he again sort of shrugged and said “it will say the facts of your train journey today” - which did not ease my feelings at all! Then he printed a slip on his machine which said, to my shock “Report for Prosecution” on the top and made me sign.

My first view was that this felt very draconian and heavy-handed, but they are probably within my rights to do this? I understand from this forum that the most likely outcome is me being required to settle out of court here, and pay a fee of c.£150, and it will not be a criminal matter.

I was pretty non-plussed with the attitude of the RPO. Ironically, it felt like he was being pretty evasive about what he was doing, especially as he was implying that no action would be taken. Additionally, he was wearing a body cam, but never mentioned that he was recording (I know this is a requirement for police…) and it wasn’t particularly visible on his body, as he was standing at an angle with it away from me, when he was taking my details.

So I am seeking advice for what to do!

- Do I write to the prosecutions team with my side of events already - I have ‘generalised anxiety disorder’ so this might help me!

- What does “may or may not write to me” mean in practice?! Is it because it was a bit of a ‘training drill’? Or was it because I was such a small amount off the correct fare (c.£3)

- Should I contact the customer service line and mention about the experience with the RPO, which I honestly thought was really really poor and I am tempted to raise a complaint, but I don’t want to get myself into an even worse/more anxiety inducing position!

- Or should I just wait for the letter from SW Rail to come (or not!)?

I obviously realise I was silly to not check about the expiry date of my railcard. A slight mitigation is that I did not get an email reminder that it was due for renewal but I still accept full responsibility. For the avoidance of doubt, I have now bought a railcard!

I would also like to clarify that, should I settle straight away, this won’t appear on an Enhanced DBS?

Thoughts and advice welcomed! Hope you’ve all had a wonderful Easter!

RailUK Forums

ikcdab · 21 Apr 2025

Welcome to the forum.
The usual advice is to wait for them to write to you. When they do, come back here for further advice. You can't write to them in advance as you do not have any reference numbers.
It is unlikely that your anxiety disorder will carry any weight.

the1341 · 21 Apr 2025

ikcdab said:
Welcome to the forum.
The usual advice is to wait for them to write to you. When they do, come back here for further advice. You can't write to them in advance as you do not have any reference numbers.
It is unlikely that your anxiety disorder will carry any weight.

Thank you! I wasn’t anticipating it would carry any weight - more so that actually doing something in the interim might help how I deal with the issue! But if best practice is to wait, then I will

enyoueffsea · 21 Apr 2025

Answering your questions in order.

1. Wait for them to write to you.
2. They’ll write to you. Unless it goes missing or is forgotten, which is fairly unlikely. They were probably non-committal about it to avoid any potential confrontation.
3. You could complain. But it’s unlikely to improve any outcome of your case and equally unlikely to result in any changes to practice.
4. Yes, wait for their letter and then as above, return here for advice.
5. Not receiving a reminder to renew is not mitigation. There is unlikely to be any successful mitigation for such a case. It’s entirely your responsibility to ensure your railcard is valid.
6. No, it wouldn’t appear on a DBS if you settled out of court as you would not have received a prosecution.

Skimpot flyer · 22 Apr 2025

On the matter of the difference in fares being small, it makes no difference.
As far as the railway are concerned, you travelled with an invalid ticket, effectively no ticket.

phoenix743 · 22 Apr 2025

The

the1341 said:
Good evening,

I have a few questions and points of advice about an incident that occurred on Thursday as I was going away for the Easter weekend. The advice provided on this forum looks very detailed and specific so I thought this would be a great place to start!

I was travelling from Wimbledon to Datchet on Thursday. This is a journey I do semi-regularly as my partner lives there. On this occasion, there was a Revenue Protection ‘training drill’ (quote from the RPO) on the bridge between the requisite platforms at Clapham Junction.

I was requested to show my ticket, which I got out, and then my railcard. To my horror, I noted that my railcard had expired on 11-Apr, 6 days prior.

I immediately apologised, realising my error (note, I realise I am in the wrong here for not having a valid railcard!), and straightaway offered to pay the difference (would have been about £3 between railcard and non-railcard as it was a single peak fare) or for a new fare. The RPO then clearly stated that he was “not going to issue a penalty fare here” and took me aside.

I was under the presumption I would be getting a warning and nothing more, but then he started taking my details and I started to panic a bit, especially when he was asking about my eye colours (which I misheard as “fave colour” first)! When I asked why he was taking my details since he had said he wasn’t giving me a penalty fare, he sort of shrugged and said that the “train operator may or may not write to you” and when I pressed what the letter might contain, he again sort of shrugged and said “it will say the facts of your train journey today” - which did not ease my feelings at all! Then he printed a slip on his machine which said, to my shock “Report for Prosecution” on the top and made me sign.

My first view was that this felt very draconian and heavy-handed, but they are probably within my rights to do this? I understand from this forum that the most likely outcome is me being required to settle out of court here, and pay a fee of c.£150, and it will not be a criminal matter.

I was pretty non-plussed with the attitude of the RPO. Ironically, it felt like he was being pretty evasive about what he was doing, especially as he was implying that no action would be taken. Additionally, he was wearing a body cam, but never mentioned that he was recording (I know this is a requirement for police…) and it wasn’t particularly visible on his body, as he was standing at an angle with it away from me, when he was taking my details.

So I am seeking advice for what to do!

- Do I write to the prosecutions team with my side of events already - I have ‘generalised anxiety disorder’ so this might help me!

- What does “may or may not write to me” mean in practice?! Is it because it was a bit of a ‘training drill’? Or was it because I was such a small amount off the correct fare (c.£3)

- Should I contact the customer service line and mention about the experience with the RPO, which I honestly thought was really really poor and I am tempted to raise a complaint, but I don’t want to get myself into an even worse/more anxiety inducing position!

- Or should I just wait for the letter from SW Rail to come (or not!)?

I obviously realise I was silly to not check about the expiry date of my railcard. A slight mitigation is that I did not get an email reminder that it was due for renewal but I still accept full responsibility. For the avoidance of doubt, I have now bought a railcard!

I would also like to clarify that, should I settle straight away, this won’t appear on an Enhanced DBS?

Thoughts and advice welcomed! Hope you’ve all had a wonderful Easter!

Just to put you at ease the body warm cameras are not constantly recording, they are activated by the staff member, normally if they are dealing with aggressive passengers.

the1341 · 22 Apr 2025

Thanks all - this is very helpful! Given what has been posted, I’ll share the letter, if and when I get one, for further advice. Feels like this is a pretty standard case!

I am still very surprised at the report for prosecution, given the other options that are available for the RPOs. It would be good if there was some relativism, but on the flip side, there is no way I will have an invalid ticket ever again!!

Titfield · 22 Apr 2025

the1341 said:
Thanks all - this is very helpful! Given what has been posted, I’ll share the letter, if and when I get one, for further advice. Feels like this is a pretty standard case!

I am still very surprised at the report for prosecution, given the other options that are available for the RPOs. It would be good if there was some relativism, but on the flip side, there is no way I will have an invalid ticket ever again!!

From the posts we see on this forum, any "no" / expired / incorrect railcard event now seems to result in a report for prosecution. We believe this is to enable the back office investigations team to see if / how many other times the "no" / expired / incorrect railcard has been used and thus included in any offer of an out of court settlement offer.

I would agree that it would have been more proportionate in this case (low discount, very short period of card expiry) to have issued a Penalty Fare but presumably the instructions to RPI is one course of action only.

We do see many posts on this forum where the RPI / Guard has used a form of words that suggests there may / may not be follow up action and / or a suggestion that any follow up action would be "mild" (my word). Undoubtedly this is a conflict avoidance strategy that staff have been instructed to us. Whilst I can see why this course of action is taken, it seems to me to be misleading / disingenuous at least and a knowing untruth at worst.

DeverseSam · 22 Apr 2025

Can anyone comment on the eye colour question ?!

Haywain · 22 Apr 2025

DeverseSam said:
Can anyone comment on the eye colour question ?!

In what way? The OP says a question was asked, and that was probably so that the answer could be recorded. There's nothing wrong about asking a question.

WesternLancer · 22 Apr 2025

DeverseSam said:
Can anyone comment on the eye colour question ?!

Presumably a question used that can help to verify people who give false details (as part of the description taken by the RPI on the day) when they are stopped, especially if the person stopped has no formal ID to present when stopped, or claims to have no ID on them. See other cases on the forum where a member of the public comes for advice here when they receive a letter from a train Company alleging they have committed a ticketing offence when in fact they have never been on the train / any train / in that part of the country etc.

Didn't eye colour used to be a question recorded on your passport? but in UK it was dropped due to the ability to use contact lenses to change the appearance of your eye colour thus reducing the benefit of it at passport control points - or am I mis remembering that. Quick google suggests it may still be a question that a parent is required to complete when applying for a child's passport so it may be a good question the train companies have decided to use when taking a description of a person with a ticket irregularity.

Elecman · 22 Apr 2025

Did you buy a new railcard ready for the return journey? ? If so you can mention that fact when responding to the train company when they write to you

the1341 · 22 Apr 2025

Titfield said:
From the posts we see on this forum, any "no" / expired / incorrect railcard event now seems to result in a report for prosecution. We believe this is to enable the back office investigations team to see if / how many other times the "no" / expired / incorrect railcard has been used and thus included in any offer of an out of court settlement offer.

I would agree that it would have been more proportionate in this case (low discount, very short period of card expiry) to have issued a Penalty Fare but presumably the instructions to RPI is one course of action only.

We do see many posts on this forum where the RPI / Guard has used a form of words that suggests there may / may not be follow up action and / or a suggestion that any follow up action would be "mild" (my word). Undoubtedly this is a conflict avoidance strategy that staff have been instructed to us. Whilst I can see why this course of action is taken, it seems to me to be misleading / disingenuous at least and a knowing untruth at worst.

The last line is my thoughts exactly. It felt misleading - while it might be a conflict avoidance strategy, I was not aggressive or confrontational at all. I just wanted to know what was going to happen! This was especially given the low £ discount, and me thinking that I would be given a warning at most, as soon as he said he wasn’t going to issue a penalty fine. It just feels quite unedifying to me.

This was also the first time I had incorrectly used an expired railcard - that would be confirmed by my journey history. I did have my TFL oyster card linked to this railcard, but I understand that this would have been “disunited” upon expiry.

DeverseSam said:
Can anyone comment on the eye colour question ?!

So I glanced down to his screen after I heard him say “colour” and noted that he was taking down details such as eye colour / hair colour, and whether or not I was clean shaven!!

Elecman said:
Did you buy a new railcard ready for the return journey? ? If so you can mention that fact when responding to the train company when they write to you

I didn’t do a return journey - but I can confirm I bought a new railcard as soon as I got off the train!

Haywain · 22 Apr 2025

the1341 said:
So I glanced down to his screen after I heard him say “colour” and noted that he was taking down details such as eye colour / hair colour, and whether or not I was clean shaven!!

It's just noting down a simple description so that they have something to go on if the person stopped subsequently claims it wasn't them.

WesternLancer · 22 Apr 2025

the1341 said:
So I glanced down to his screen after I heard him say “colour” and noted that he was taking down details such as eye colour / hair colour, and whether or not I was clean shaven!!

This will be standard procedure

It's basically in everyone's interest (apart from a deliberate fare evader using another - innocent - person's name and address) that they take down an accurate description of a person for reasons in my earlier post. I suspect that 'back in the day' such descriptions might have included ethnicity / skin colour too - but I imagine that in order to avoid people putting down such things in a way that some others might find offensive, then other descriptions like hair colour might be on their usual list of things to note.

There is a current thread involving someone being summonsed to court by NEXUS in the north east for a ticket offence the person insists he could not have done as he wasn't there, but is worried that the railways staff member's description of the person they stopped is not sufficiently different from his own description (supported by ID) for them to have stopped the prosecution. IIRC in that case the person was expecting to have to go to court to try to convince the magistrates this was not him.

Joe Paxton · 22 Apr 2025

Titfield said:
From the posts we see on this forum, any "no" / expired / incorrect railcard event now seems to result in a report for prosecution. We believe this is to enable the back office investigations team to see if / how many other times the "no" / expired / incorrect railcard has been used and thus included in any offer of an out of court settlement offer.

I would agree that it would have been more proportionate in this case (low discount, very short period of card expiry) to have issued a Penalty Fare but presumably the instructions to RPI is one course of action only.
[...]

Thanks, that does seem to explain this approach re Railcard issues - presumably the associated trawls of previous ticket purchases of those stopped have thrown up question marks often enough for TOCs to consider this a worthwhile strategy. In a case such as this though it does feel rather disproportionate - not really a way to win the hearts & minds of passengers who aren't on the fiddle.

Titfield · 22 Apr 2025

Joe Paxton said:
Thanks, that does seem to explain this approach re Railcard issues - presumably the associated trawls of previous ticket purchases of those stopped have thrown up question marks often enough for TOCs to consider this a worthwhile strategy. In a case such as this though it does feel rather disproportionate - not really a way to win the hearts & minds of passengers who aren't on the fiddle.

Based on the small number of cases we see on this forum (relative to the number of investigations the TOCs must initiate) in a high proportion of cases the poster reveals that when they checked their booking record there were other journeys for which the discount was claimed but the card had expired. Undoubtedly it is a worthwhile strategy.

We have debated on this forum on more than one occasion whether any "discretion" should be shown or a lesser penalty applied to recently expired cards.

the1341 · 25 Apr 2025

Well that was quick - don’t even have the option to reply!

Just to 100% confirm, please can someone confirm that by paying the £130.50, nothing will come up on an Enhanced DBS, and there will be no criminal record.

Thanks in advance

Haywain · 25 Apr 2025

the1341 said:
Well that was quick - don’t even have the option to reply!

Just to 100% confirm, please can someone confirm that by paying the £130.50, nothing will come up on an Enhanced DBS, and there will be no criminal record.

Thanks in advance

Pay the money and that’s the end of it. No record will exist other than with SWR.

Joe Paxton · 25 Apr 2025

Haywain said:
Pay the money and that’s the end of it. No record will exist other than with SWR.

I guess it's possible that as the various TOCs come under public ownership, such records might become more widely available across the rail industry. One of the great many unknowns of the GBR-led future!

Haywain · 25 Apr 2025

Joe Paxton said:
I guess it's possible that as the various TOCs come under public ownership, such records might become more widely available across the rail industry. One of the great many unknowns of the GBR-led future!

Maybe, but it will still not be available to anyone outside of a very limited part of the rail industry.

Joe Paxton · 25 Apr 2025

Haywain said:
Maybe, but it will still not be available to anyone outside of a very limited part of the rail industry.

Agreed.

Curious whether TOCs check such records as part of their recruitment process for potential new employees?

John R · 25 Apr 2025

Haywain said:
Pay the money and that’s the end of it. No record will exist other than with SWR.

Is that actually the case? Isn't there already a common database of those stopped across all rail companies, given PF's, reported for investigation etc, precisely so that if someone is stopped for a second or third time, they are more likely to be treated in a harsher way, regardless of which company is involved.

Haywain · 25 Apr 2025

John R said:
Isn't there already a common database of those stopped across all rail companies, given PF's, reported for investigation etc, precisely so that if someone is stopped for a second or third time, they are more likely to be treated in a harsher way, regardless of which company is involved.

I think there would be a major breach of GDPR if that was the case. And I don't think we have ever seen anything to suggest that such data sharing might happen.

Fawkes Cat · 26 Apr 2025

Haywain said:
I think there would be a major breach of GDPR if that was the case. And I don't think we have ever seen anything to suggest that such data sharing might happen.

I can see an argument that the 'detection and prevention of crime' exemption to GDPR might apply to such a database. But practically speaking, I don't think such a database exists - yet. I can imagine that this might change as GBR comes along: I further imagine that many people would see this as a benefit from nationalisation.

skyhigh · 26 Apr 2025

John R said:
Isn't there already a common database of those stopped across all rail companies,

No, there is not.

Query on “Report for Prosecution” received

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