I would love to read the excuses for not paying.
By contrast, I travelled from Paddington to Bristol Temple Meads yesterday without a ticket check, so quite easy to get to the destination without a check. And that was after passing through open barriers at Paddington.
I did wonder what "proved in her (or his) absence actually entails. I assume it means this was the name and address given, which may or may not be true of course. Also why the amount due seems to bear little correlation to the fare avoided, unless there is previous history with the individual.
Because the fine is based on a standard scale (as a percentage of presumed income), rather than on the fare avoided. You'll notice that most of the totals are £412 plus the fare due.
The amount due will include the fine imposed by the court, victim surcharge (10% of the fine amount unless that’s changed recently), compensation (the fare avoided) and costs (around £100 give or take in contribution to the costs imposed by the TOC).
Of course this isn't necessarily the case - it could equally well be that the person moved after giving their then-current address to the TOC, and didn't set up mail redirection or not for long enough if they did. It wouldn't occur to most people to let a TOC know they've moved if they had their details taken weeks or months ago. Many might think that if nothing came soon afterwards then that's the end of the matter.
Given that most of them are undefended, they really don't consume that much time.
£2.80 doesn’t seem a lot. It’s when that turns in to £280,000 that it puts the scale of the problem in to at least a bit of perspective.
The same could be said for any other agency really. Should TV licensing be allowed to do so? Should VOSA? Should minor motoring offences? What happens if a penalty notice for disorder isn’t paid? All of these require Mags courts.
The Court could always decline to issue the summons if they wanted to.
What about other railway offences?
I don't wonder- I consider it to be a gross misuse. The fact that this is happening in Bristol, covering the Crown Prosecution Service area most in disarray with hundreds of serious criminal cases falling apart, with many not even coming to trial because of incompetence and inadequacies, only adds to that assessment. We've had similar headlines down in Cornwall, with someone fined (with 'victim surcharge') close on £1,000 for evading a fare of £2.70. Like so many, he was tried in his absence, as he never received the notice of his court appearance. How do I know? Because a few weeks later, in a short paragraph on page 24 or something, unlike the page 3 of the original article, his appeal was allowed and he ended up having to pay the £2.70! Several of the other cases featured in the original article had similar outcomes, as magistrates accepted they'd had no knowledge of court cases, many having moved address in the meantime. These were all people who'd given correct names and addresses to the railway people who'd originally questioned them. It used to be the case that proof of a summons to court having been received by the accused was necessary before petty (derived from the French petit, meaning small or little) cases could be brought to court, but 'streamlining' (i.e. costcutting and cutting corners) saw an end to that. Petty Sessions were part of the criminal justice system for decades in most of the U.K. for decades until about 1980.
So you have an axe to grind.
