Byelaw offences

[MoniiMonzx]

Hi all.
I have a few questions regarding the s18 byelaw railway offence:

1. Would this be classed as a criminal conviction?

2. would this show up on a standard DBS check? Will it show up for the time that it is unspent and once unspent it will not appear?

3. Is this known as an offence of dishonesty?

4. Would this be something that I will need to declare on professional applications when asked about spent and unspent criminal convictions? If byelaws are not a recordable offence and the regulatory body’s standard DBS check does not pick up on this, would this still need to be declared?

Your answers would be much appreciated.

Thank you.

 

[Fawkes Cat]

For reference, byelaw 18 reads

18. Ticketless travel in non-compulsory ticket areas
(1) In any area not designated as a compulsory ticket area, no person shall enter
any train for the purpose of travelling on the railway unless he has with him a
valid ticket entitling him to travel.
(2) A person shall hand over his ticket for inspection and verification of validity
when asked to do so by an authorised person.
(3) No person shall be in breach of Byelaw 18(1) or 18(2) if:
(i) there were no facilities in working order for the issue or
validation of any ticket at the time when, and the station where,
he began his journey; or
(ii) there was a notice at the station where he began his journey
permitting journeys to be started without a valid ticket; or
(iii) an authorised person gave him permission to travel without a
valid ticket.

(source: https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&sou...FjACegQIAhAB&usg=AOvVaw39AxUgygq_DrBTrJSz8z8t)

So to answer your questions as well as I can:

1) Yes
2) My understanding is that byelaw convictions in general (and railway byelaw convictions in particular) are immediately spent. So it's unlikely to show up on a standard DBS. Others may be along shortly to advise better.
3. I don't know the definition of an 'offence of dishonesty'. But assuming that all the words take their dictionary meaning, then dodging your fare is an offence, and it's dishonest, so yes, a byelaw 18 offence is an offence of dishonesty. There may be a more technical definition that takes it out of that category.
4. Per (1) above, it's a criminal conviction that (per my understanding of (2)) is immediately spent, so if spent criminal convictions are not required, you need not mention it. But in general, my advice would be to mention it anyhow: railway byelaw offences are generally seen as errors of judgement, and anyone can make a one-off mistake. If there are a number of occurrences, that's a different matter - and the same applies if you don't mention a minor offence, in that not only did you commit the offence (an error of judgement) but you then tried to keep it out of sight (another error of judgement, so there's a pattern of repeated errors, and keeping the offence out of sight casts doubt on your honesty). So mention the conviction - you will get a reputation for honesty, even when it's at your own expense, and that is probably a good reputation to have.

 

[MoniiMonzx]

For reference, byelaw 18 reads

(source: https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&sou...FjACegQIAhAB&usg=AOvVaw39AxUgygq_DrBTrJSz8z8t)

So to answer your questions as well as I can:

1) Yes
2) My understanding is that byelaw convictions in general and railway byelaw convictions in particular) are immediately spent. So it's unlikely to show up on a standard DBS. Others may be along shortly to advise better.
3. I don't know the definition of an 'offence of dishonesty'. But assuming that all the words take their dictionary meaning, then dodging your fare is an offence, and it's dishonest, so yes, a byelaw 18 offence is an offence of dishonesty. There may be a more technical definition that takes it out of that category.
4. Per (1) above, it's a criminal conviction that (per my understanding of (2)) is immediately spent, so if spent criminal convictions are not required, you need not mention it. But in general, my advice would be to mention it anyhow: railway byelaw offences are generally seen as errors of judgement, and anyone can make a one-off mistake. If there are a number of occurrences, that's a different matter - and the same applies if you don't mention a minor offence, in that not only did you commit the offence (an error of judgement) but you then tried to keep it out of sight (another error of judgement, so there's a pattern of repeated errors, and keeping the offence out of sight casts doubt on your honesty). So mention the conviction - you will get a reputation for honesty, even when it's at your own expense, and that is probably a good reputation to have.

Thank you so much for taking the take to answer!

 

[30907]

This has been much discussed on previous threads, but I don't think we have had the query about a standard DBS before/ recently.
On #3, a Byelaw 18 conviction does not imply intent to avoid payment (that is covered by RoRA section 5. So I would say it is not an offence of dishonesty.
That said, mention your conviction anyway (maybe with a note saying "not sure this is relevant").

 

[cuccir]

On #3, a Byelaw 18 conviction does not imply intent to avoid payment (that is covered by RoRA section 5. So I would say it is not an offence of dishonesty.

Agreed: there is no intent required for guilt so it is not an offence of dishonesty.

 

[pedr]

I’m not aware of any part of the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act declaring convictions for bylaw offences to be immediately spent. A conviction which results in a fine is spent after one year, under that Act.

Posts on this forum suggest that in almost all cases convictions for bylaw offences are not recorded by the police, and an unrecorded conviction won’t appear on a DBS check. That doesn’t mean it’s automatically appropriate to fail to disclose it before it is spent, if the question is “have you ever been convicted of an offence, (disregarding convictions spent under the terms of the RoOA)?”

If someone who is allowed to ask questions about convictions without the limitations of the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act asks, it would be wise to disclose even if you believe it would not be revealed by any level of DBS check, I expect.

 

[cuccir]

I’m not aware of any part of the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act declaring convictions for bylaw offences to be immediately spent. A conviction which results in a fine is spent after one year, under that Act.

This is also my understanding.

 

[exbrel]

as a retired staff travel card user, i'm not that well up on the byelaws, am I right back in the day there were notices on the stations, I can't say I've seen any recently, possibly because there must be that many nowadays they would cover the station. So how can a passenger be expected to adhere to them, if they do not know of them...
At football grounds there are ground regulations on view by the turnstiles, and you are admitted on the provision that you agree to them.

 

[Fawkes Cat]

as a retired staff travel card user, i'm not that well up on the byelaws, am I right back in the day there were notices on the stations, I can't say I've seen any recently, possibly because there must be that many nowadays they would cover the station. So how can a passenger be expected to adhere to them, if they do not know of them...
At football grounds there are ground regulations on view by the turnstiles, and you are admitted on the provision that you agree to them.

On the back of my season ticket (the only ticket I have to hand right now) it says 'issued subject to the National Rail Conditions of Carriage' (sic - I'm guessing that they don't issue too many annual seasons at Bootle Oriel Road and are still using up old stock). Assuming that the Conditions of Travel refer somewhere to passengers also abiding by the byelaws, then passengers have been notified of the rules. Because everyone always reads what it says on the back of their ticket, don't they?

 

[pedr]

One anomaly of how English law works means that there are precise requirements for the signage needed if a Train Operating Company wishes to use powers it's been given to charge penalty fares, but because the liability to criminal conviction under the by-laws is contained in generally applicable legislation, every person in the country is treated as if they know what the law is. So there don't need to be signs (and the position is very different from a football ground: Parliament has given the rail industry the right to make criminal law, and it's done so by creating the by-laws; signs outside a stadium will primarily be indicating the behaviour which might lead to the operators expelling you and/or banning you in future.)

But the position of by-laws as part of our criminal justice system is out of date, really - it made sense when records weren't computerised, information travelled slowly, and a conviction for not having a ticket, or for remaining in a park after closing, or similar wouldn't be remembered much after the payment of the fine. A more systematic use of fixed-penalty notices not amounting to convictions probably makes far more sense for everything the by-laws cover.

 

[Haywain]

At football grounds there are ground regulations on view by the turnstiles, and you are admitted on the provision that you agree to them.

But does anybody ever read them? Do more than a small number of people visiting football grounds have any idea what they have agreed or are agreeing to?

 

[some bloke]

If you don't already have this information, see if the regulatory body's website has rules or a code stating what you must tell them.

The website might also reassure you that this kind of offence isn't generally of interest to the regulatory body as regards fitness to practise (despite a requirement to tell them).

 

[MoniiMonzx]

Hi all. Just a quick update. After instructing a solicitor and failing to settle outside of court, I decided to please guilty. I have received the attached letter in the post.
I will need to pay a fine. However, I thought the court would have been more explicit and stated the actual offence that I am convicted for. To be honest, at first I thought I was just being fined but it appears that I have been convicted and my sentence is the fine stated here. I just find it all a little confusing as there is no mention of the Byelaw 17(1) offence and there is no mention that I have even been convicted. Maybe I am being silly! But all advice is welcome. Thank you for the advice already provided. I will pay my fine tomorrow and get this all over and done with! Thank you.

 

[MoniiMonzx]

*plead, not please!

Hi all. Just a quick update. After instructing a solicitor and failing to settle outside of court, I decided to please guilty. I have received the attached letter in the post.
I will need to pay a fine. However, I thought the court would have been more explicit and stated the actual offence that I am convicted for. To be honest, at first I thought I was just being fined but it appears that I have been convicted and my sentence is the fine stated here. I just find it all a little confusing as there is no mention of the Byelaw 17(1) offence and there is no mention that I have even been convicted. Maybe I am being silly! But all advice is welcome. Thank you for the advice already provided. I will pay my fine tomorrow and get this all over and done with! Thank you.

 

[221129]

Hi all. Just a quick update. After instructing a solicitor and failing to settle outside of court, I decided to please guilty. I have received the attached letter in the post.
I will need to pay a fine. However, I thought the court would have been more explicit and stated the actual offence that I am convicted for. To be honest, at first I thought I was just being fined but it appears that I have been convicted and my sentence is the fine stated here. I just find it all a little confusing as there is no mention of the Byelaw 17(1) offence and there is no mention that I have even been convicted. Maybe I am being silly! But all advice is welcome. Thank you for the advice already provided. I will pay my fine tomorrow and get this all over and done with! Thank you.

The fact you pleaded guilty and were fined shows you've been convicted...

Also the Bylaw wording is on there as well.

 

[MoniiMonzx]

The fact you pleaded guilty and were fined shows you've been convicted...

Also the Bylaw wording is on there as well.

Thanks

 

[Leadean]

Hi all.
I have a few questions regarding the s18 byelaw railway offence:

1. Would this be classed as a criminal conviction?

2. would this show up on a standard DBS check? Will it show up for the time that it is unspent and once unspent it will not appear?

3. Is this known as an offence of dishonesty?

4. Would this be something that I will need to declare on professional applications when asked about spent and unspent criminal convictions? If byelaws are not a recordable offence and the regulatory body’s standard DBS check does not pick up on this, would this still need to be declared?

Your answers would be much appreciated.

Thank you.

I went through the exact same thing! I was prosecuted under the Byelaw Railway act 17(1).
Very stressful thing to go through. But you will be pleased to know that such an offence does not get recorded on the police database and it does not appear on your DBS. I was applying for a job and they needed to check my background details and check my criminal record through a DBS. To get my own peace of mind I applied on the Government website to get my criminal record checked and it was clear! Bear in mind that I pleaded guilty to this offence last year November (2019). SO to reassure you, even if you plead guilty and you get fined the offence or conviction won’t appear on your criminal record and it is not a recordable offence on the police database.
If you want peace of mind get your record checked on the government website, it only cost £23:

Disclosure and Barring Service

The Disclosure and Barring Service helps employers make safer recruitment decisions. DBS is an executive non-departmental public body, sponsored by the Home Office .

www.gov.uk

 

[jumble]

I went through the exact same thing! I was prosecuted under the Byelaw Railway act 17(1).
Very stressful thing to go through. But you will be pleased to know that such an offence does not get recorded on the police database and it does not appear on your DBS. I was applying for a job and they needed to check my background details and check my criminal record through a DBS. To get my own peace of mind I applied on the Government website to get my criminal record checked and it was clear! Bear in mind that I pleaded guilty to this offence last year November (2019). SO to reassure you, even if you plead guilty and you get fined the offence or conviction won’t appear on your criminal record and it is not a recordable offence on the police database.
If you want peace of mind get your record checked on the government website, it only cost £23:

Disclosure and Barring Service

The Disclosure and Barring Service helps employers make safer recruitment decisions. DBS is an executive non-departmental public body, sponsored by the Home Office .

www.gov.uk

You are on dangerous ground claiming the your experience will apply to everyone as it is my understanding that it is possible a mistake could be made by the courts and such a conviction does get passed to the PNC
As an aside can one get ones own advanced check as I think this is more useful to know?
Previously there was no official way to do this but there was nothing stopping anyone who wanted to to ask an umbrella organisation to do an advanced check
Although it is supposedly illegal to do your own I always struggled to understand who was going to care.

 

[island]

I’m not aware of any part of the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act declaring convictions for bylaw offences to be immediately spent. A conviction which results in a fine is spent after one year, under that Act.

Posts on this forum suggest that in almost all cases convictions for bylaw offences are not recorded by the police, and an unrecorded conviction won’t appear on a DBS check. That doesn’t mean it’s automatically appropriate to fail to disclose it before it is spent, if the question is “have you ever been convicted of an offence, (disregarding convictions spent under the terms of the RoOA)?”

If someone who is allowed to ask questions about convictions without the limitations of the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act asks, it would be wise to disclose even if you believe it would not be revealed by any level of DBS check, I expect.

This is correct.

Some time back, a series of discussions on this forum managed to mangle “a Railway byelaw conviction is not a recordable offence” (which is correct, though see below) into “a Railway byelaw conviction is spent immediately” (which is not).

Whilst a byelaw conviction shouldn’t appear on a DBS check of any sort (unless it was given at the same time as a conviction that is recordable), that is not to say that court clerks, police, or other officials will do everything correctly, and it has been known for byelaw convictions to be recorded.

Therefore, if you are asked whether you have unspent criminal convictions, my advice is to disclose this – until it’s spent, which is a year from the conviction. In the alternative, you may apply for a basic disclosure yourself online.

As an aside can one get ones own advanced check as I think this is more useful to know?
Previously there was no official way to do this but there was nothing stopping anyone who wanted to to ask an umbrella organisation to do an advanced check
Although it is supposedly illegal to do your own I always struggled to understand who was going to care.

There is no such thing as an “advanced check”.

If you wanted to find out what might appear on an enhanced or standard check about yourself, you could I suppose make a data subject access request under the GDPR, although for an enhanced check you might have to ask a lot of police forces, as “soft” information is not always stored centrally.

Finally, a number of posters above have suggested that spent convictions do not appear on a standard DBS check. This is incorrect.

 

[jumble]

This is correct.

Some time back, a series of discussions on this forum managed to mangle “a Railway byelaw conviction is not a recordable offence” (which is correct, though see below) into “a Railway byelaw conviction is spent immediately” (which is not).

Whilst a byelaw conviction shouldn’t appear on a DBS check of any sort (unless it was given at the same time as a conviction that is recordable), that is not to say that court clerks, police, or other officials will do everything correctly, and it has been known for byelaw convictions to be recorded.

Therefore, if you are asked whether you have unspent criminal convictions, my advice is to disclose this – until it’s spent, which is a year from the conviction. In the alternative, you may apply for a basic disclosure yourself online.


There is no such thing as an “advanced check”.

If you wanted to find out what might appear on an enhanced or standard check about yourself, you could I suppose make a data subject access request under the GDPR, although for an enhanced check you might have to ask a lot of police forces, as “soft” information is not always stored centrally.

Finally, a number of posters above have suggested that spent convictions do not appear on a standard DBS check. This is incorrect.

I would have thought that it would be much easier to actually get an enhanced check done than contacting many police forces.

(Umbrella organisations are not supposed to this directly some seem happy to bend the rules.)

As an amusing aside I was treasurer for a large community organisation involving children.
My enhanced DBS took 8 months to be processed because of the bureaucracy of the organisation
I was in post from day 1

 

[island]

It possibly should be easier, but I fear we are going off-topic.