Debt recovery and potential prosecution

[Nonewthing]

Hi everyone,

I got a mail/letter from the Debt recovery and Prosecution unit of the Northern rail.

Below is the content of the letter


"This office acts as the prosecuting authority for Northern Trains Limited.
We have been alerted to activity on your ticket purchasing history which we feel warrants
further investigation. We would therefore like to invite you to an interview in relation to this.
The interview would be under the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 and can be arranged
at a time and location convenient to yourself.
There is no assumption of guilt at this stage in proceedings as we are simply undertaking an
investigation of what has been deemed, possible suspicious activity. Part of the investigation
is questioning you about the activity and this interview must be done in a formal setting
following legislation which would allow the content to be admissible as evidence at Court, if
matters progressed to that stage. You are entitled to seek legal advice at your own cost and
arrangement in relation to this matter and any Solicitor you instruct can attend the interview
with you.

If you do not respond to our correspondence by "-"February 2024 or you decline to be
interviewed in relation to this matter, we will continue our investigations and may progress this
matter by way of a private prosecution against you.

We look forward to hearing from you."

I hardly travel Northern trains these days and I have probably hopped on their train 3 times in the last 6 months.
The last train ticket I bought on trainline for a Northern train is an open return ticket from Middlesbrough to Newcastle which I have used the outgoing with no plans of returning back to middlesbrough.

Anyone with any advice of how I should proceed please?

 

[Brissle Girl]

Welcome to the forum!

Can you think of any reason why they may have highlighted your account? Delay/repay submissions, refunding of tickets, etc?

 

[Deafdoggie]

When you say "these days" have you previously travelled regularly with them?

 

[Fawkes Cat]

Welcome to the forum!

The first few things you need to be aware of arethat
- any train company seems to be able to look at any ticket sales (not just the Trainline), and
- in practice any train company can take action on behalf of all of them.
- across the railway, there's a view that fare dodging can be prosecuted as fraud; while that's a more difficult charge to show than one from the railway byelaws, it doesn't have the six month limit for starting a prosecution.

In the light of all that, you need to ask yourself (and you don't have to tell us the answer!) how clean your records are in terms of buying tickets, claiming refunds and so on. If you can tell yourself that there's nothing that the railway would find suspicious, then I would advise hanging on to the letter in case it is followed up, but otherwise ignoring it.

 

[Nonewthing]

Welcome to the forum!

Can you think of any reason why they may have highlighted your account? Delay/repay submissions, refunding of tickets, etc?

Tbh, I'm not sure exactly why I have been sent this. I Don't have any delay/repay submissions, I have refunded tickets in the past. I'm not sure what's going on

When you say "these days" have you previously travelled regularly with them?

Yeah I used the Northern train a lot early to mid last year between Newcastle, Sunderland and Middlesbrough depending on where I'm at.

Welcome to the forum!

The first few things you need to be aware of arethat
- any train company seems to be able to look at any ticket sales (not just the Trainline), and
- in practice any train company can take action on behalf of all of them.
- across the railway, there's a view that fare dodging can be prosecuted as fraud; while that's a more difficult charge to show than one from the railway byelaws, it doesn't have the six month limit for starting a prosecution.

In the light of all that, you need to ask yourself (and you don't have to tell us the answer!) how clean your records are in terms of buying tickets, claiming refunds and so on. If you can tell yourself that there's nothing that the railway would find suspicious, then I would advise hanging on to the letter in case it is followed up, but otherwise ignoring it.

I checked my refund history last year and I found out I've refunded about 3 to 4 tickets 3 of them rightfully so. The last one however, the train was so packed, I stood the entire 3 hours journey which meant the conductor on LNER couldn't scan the tickets, I proceeded to refund that one. It's hard for me to think beyond these situations. I'm not even sure how to proceed which is my paramount problem

 

[Snow1964]

Note they are looking at ticket purchasing history. That is tickets purchased by someone with an account, at Northern rail, or ticketing app.

It could be you were staying with relatives, so had multiple start points. Or use one account for whole family (so get quite a mix, including some with, some without railcards).

Some sort of scanning process has gone through histories and has flagged it as an unusual mix. Not really a problem if you and your family members have genuinely bought correct tickets.

Has to be said, only Op knows the score and if they did always get correct ticket, but if everything is above board, then nothing to worry about. Interviewers are trained to make guilty feel comfortable, so by relaxing and not thinking, and limiting answer to question, slip out info, think of it as they are fishing for you to incriminate yourself.

If not done anything wrong, decline the interview, it is for them to find something to charge you with, so if there isn't anything then it would close after further review due to no evidence.

 

[Titfield]

I checked my refund history last year and I found out I've refunded about 3 to 4 tickets 3 of them rightfully so. The last one however, the train was so packed, I stood the entire 3 hours journey which meant the conductor on LNER couldn't scan the tickets, I proceeded to refund that one. It's hard for me to think beyond these situations. I'm not even sure how to proceed which is my paramount problem

I wonder if they have found this somehow and that has triggered the investigation (e.g. by the ticket being scanned either on entry or exit).

If you are convinced that there is absolutely no wrong doing then you could say that and decline to attend an interview. Then if they took matters further you could either restate your innocence and if the matter then proceeded to court plead not guilty and you would of course win. Unfortunately though there is the matter at the start of this post which to me precludes this course of action.,

If you are in the wrong then you could state this in the response to the request for interview and hope that this could persuade them to simply go for an out of court settlement. This would be in your interests if you are in the wrong as it would be cheaper and avoid a criminal record if you went to court and found guilty.

 

[800Travel]

...

I checked my refund history last year and I found out I've refunded about 3 to 4 tickets 3 of them rightfully so. The last one however, the train was so packed, I stood the entire 3 hours journey which meant the conductor on LNER couldn't scan the tickets, I proceeded to refund that one. It's hard for me to think beyond these situations. I'm not even sure how to proceed which is my paramount problem

In that instance, if you boarded the train and travelled under your ticket you were not entitled to a refund. If the train was delayed, you needed to claim delay repay. If you had a seat reservation you couldn't use, you needed to claim under the seat guarantee scheme.

 

[Nonewthing]

I wonder if they have found this somehow and that has triggered the investigation (e.g. by the ticket being scanned either on entry or exit).

If you are convinced that there is absolutely no wrong doing then you could say that and decline to attend an interview. Then if they took matters further you could either restate your innocence and if the matter then proceeded to court plead not guilty and you would of course win. Unfortunately though there is the matter at the start of this post which to me precludes this course of action.,

If you are in the wrong then you could state this in the response to the request for interview and hope that this could persuade them to simply go for an out of court settlement. This would be in your interests if you are in the wrong as it would be cheaper and avoid a criminal record if you went to court and found guilty.

Honestly, I can't quite confidently say I haven't done anything wrong in the past from fare evasion to refund and this might date as far back as a year or even more than that. Problem is, I don't know which of these offences I'm being prosecuted for

Are there any suggestions from anyone as to how I respond to the letter/what course of action I take next especially since I cant seem to pin point which offence I'm being investigated for? I'm definitely happy to go for out of court settlement whichever way it is.

 

[AlterEgo]

Honestly, I can't quite confidently say I haven't done anything wrong in the past from fare evasion to refund

Did you mean to say "can't"?

 

[Nonewthing]

Did you mean to say "can't"?

Yes

 

[Hadders]

Welcome to the forum!

I generally do not advise attending an interview conducted under the Police and Criminal Evidence Act without legal representation.

From what you've said I suspect Northern are suspicious of your refund activity. If you've travelled and then claimed a refund (which they can evidence if your ticket has been scanned at a ticket barrier or on board by a ticket inspector) then this is potentially problematic.

If your train is delayed then you can claim Delay Repay from the train company that caused the delay. Similarly, you're not entitled to a refund just because you had to stand (although if you'd travelled with LNER and a seat reservation wasn't honoured then you can claim compensation under their Seat Guarantee scheme).

 

[AlterEgo]

If you can't be confident you didn't commit some sort of offence then I think you need to be honest - with yourself at least - about what you might have been up to. I would certainly know if I was fiddling my fares or refunds!

 

[furlong]

If they already had enough evidence to prosecute why would they need an interview? See it as an invitation to incriminate yourself.

One approach if you think you've done nothing wrong is to decline their invitation to an interview but to tell them that if they express the details of what they want to know about your ticket purchasing history to you in writing then you'll reply with any clarification you think might be necessary.

But if I was confident, I'd probably ignore it - put up or shut up.

 

[Tallguy]

I would never attend a voluntary interview. The sole purpose of that interview is to get you to incriminate yourself by letting something slip. You could ignore their letter or ask them to disclose full details which you would then respond to if you feel fit.

I know what I would do.