Discussion ABout Whether Out of Court Settlements Should Take into Account the Fare Already Paid

[AlterEgo]

If a prosecution can be avoided by paying a bribe, it isn’t in the public interest. In any case, this only criminalises those who can’t afford the bribe.

You didn’t, though. The fact remains that the ability to pay the bribe is the difference between a civil resolution and a criminal record. A criminal act has been committed in both cases.

Don’t forget, we’re not talking about non-payment of a fine escalating to court proceedings. This is a criminal matter where the wronged party (who is also the investigator and prosecutor, cf. the post office) is proposing a bribe to sweep the prosecution under the carpet.

This means that, disproportionately, people in good jobs with a position of responsibility are able to pay to make the matter go away. Conversely, people on more precarious incomes who usually don’t have very responsible and trustworthy jobs get criminalised.

It’s actually very depressing to read nearly every day here of flagrant dishonesty being committed by people who “work in finance” or are nurses, doctors, or something which requires an Enhanced DBS.

 

[AdamWW]

It’s actually very depressing to read nearly every day here of flagrant dishonesty being committed by people who “work in finance” or are nurses, doctors, or something which requires an Enhanced DBS.

It's also a bit depressing to see people who have clearly committed deliberate and repeated fare evasion, losing the railway considerable sums of money, treated in the same way and given the same chance to settle out of court as people who have plausibly just made an honest mistake which has cost the railway little if any money.

Clearly the railway (or at least most TOCs) doesn't feel the need to prosecute people as a deterrent - they're happy to take the money.

In which case maybe we'd be better off with an extended ability to issue penalties rather than handling them as out of court settlements?
Maybe one with some safeguards built in as to how much the penalty can be?

It seems odd to me that the penalty fare scheme has multiple safeguards (correct signage, multiple stage appeal system etc.) but on the other hand the railway can just prosecute with the only protection being the victim's right to defend themselves in court.

 

[Haywain]

This means that, disproportionately, people in good jobs with a position of responsibility are able to pay to make the matter go away. Conversely, people on more precarious incomes who usually don’t have very responsible and trustworthy jobs get criminalised.

That applies anyway because the better paid are in a stronger position to access good legal assistance.

It’s actually very depressing to read nearly every day here of flagrant dishonesty being committed by people who “work in finance” or are nurses, doctors, or something which requires an Enhanced DBS.

I agree. It's a reflection of widespread 'relaxed' attitudes to paying for goods and services in this country.

 

[nanstallon]

Frankly out of court settlements are extremely corrupt and benefit the TOC in two ways:

1. They both avoid the cost of prosecution and cover the costs incurred (and likely more).
2. In the event they follow through with a prosecution, they’ll have associated costs but won’t receive much (if any) of the penalty levied.

“Pay us a bribe not to prosecute you” is not acceptable behaviour by other investigating or prosecuting bodies, and that’s before we approach the public interest elements of fare-related prosecutions.

Yes; the TOC takes advantage of the totally disproportionate consequences of the slightest irregularity. A criminal conviction can destroy somebody's life over a very small amount of money. I keep saying that private prosecutions should not be allowed, and any criminal prosecution should go through the CPS where there is a requirement to consider the public interest and matters of proportionality. Better still, just decriminalise these offences and leave the TOCs to recover money by civil process.

 

[Hadders]

Yes; the TOC takes advantage of the totally disproportionate consequences of the slightest irregularity. A criminal conviction can destroy somebody's life over a very small amount of money. I keep saying that private prosecutions should not be allowed, and any criminal prosecution should go through the CPS where there is a requirement to consider the public interest and matters of proportionality. Better still, just decriminalise these offences and leave the TOCs to recover money by civil process.

Decriminilising fare evasion is often mentioned as a solution, but I do have reservations as I believe there will be unintended consequences.

Currently, someone convicted of a Byelaw offence gets a criminal record spent after a year. Ordinarily the offence won't show on a basic or enhanced DBS check and is likely to not be disclosed at all (although a criminal conviction is a matter of public record)

Civil proceedings could mean a County Court Judgement. Then try and get a mortgage, loan, credit card, even a mobile phone contract for the next six years and it's going to be difficult.

I do believe that the whole legal framework around rail fare evasion needs urgent reform but I'm not convinced that decriminalisation is the best way to do this.

 

[jumble]

I've put the relevant bit in italics, as that, I think is where your argument falls down. The important point is not how much the passenger saves, but how much the railway has lost. By not having the right railcard, the passenger is indicating that they do not wish to take advantage of the discount that the card offers, and so the fare they have failed to pay is the full price fare*. Of course, it's possible that the passenger has put themselves into that position by accident, but as I think everyone agrees, there's no ready way to distinguish an intentional fare dodger who says that they forgot to renew their railcard, and the innocent who says they forgot to renew their railcard and means it.

*For the moment, 'full price' as in 'without a railcard discount'. Let's take this in easy steps.

The argument that the railway have lost thousands of pounds reminds me of the chap who came home puffing and panting telling his wife
I ran behind the bus and saved a pound
She replied
You stupid fool you should have run behind a taxi and saved a tenner.

This means that, disproportionately, people in good jobs with a position of responsibility are able to pay to make the matter go away. Conversely, people on more precarious incomes who usually don’t have very responsible and trustworthy jobs get criminalised.

It’s actually very depressing to read nearly every day here of flagrant dishonesty being committed by people who “work in finance” or are nurses, doctors, or something which requires an Enhanced DBS.

This is how the world works

Here is a perfect but perhaps unrelated example

The reason that the rich were so rich, Vimes reasoned, was because they managed to spend less money. Take boots, for example. ... A really good pair of leather boots cost fifty dollars. But an affordable pair of boots, which were sort of OK for a season or two and then leaked like hell when the cardboard gave out, cost about ten dollars. ... But the thing was that good boots lasted for years and years. A man who could afford fifty dollars had a pair of boots that'd still be keeping his feet dry in ten years' time, while a poor man who could only afford cheap boots would have spent a hundred dollars on boots in the same time and would still have wet feet.

Boots theory - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Yes; the TOC takes advantage of the totally disproportionate consequences of the slightest irregularity. A criminal conviction can destroy somebody's life over a very small amount of money. I keep saying that private prosecutions should not be allowed, and any criminal prosecution should go through the CPS where there is a requirement to consider the public interest and matters of proportionality. Better still, just decriminalise these offences and leave the TOCs to recover money by civil process.

How much will it cost a TOC to recover a fare avoided of £20.00 which the sort of person who doesn't pay fares will equally likely not pay a CCJ?
If only civil proceedings were allowed I Imagine the quantity of fare dodgers would skyrocket

 

[AdamWW]

The argument that the railway have lost thousands of pounds reminds me of the chap who came home puffing and panting telling his wife
I ran behind the bus and saved a pound
She replied
You stupid fool you should have run behind a taxi and saved a tenner.

Quite!

 

[nanstallon]

Decriminilising fare evasion is often mentioned as a solution, but I do have reservations as I believe there will be unintended consequences.

Currently, someone convicted of a Byelaw offence gets a criminal record spent after a year. Ordinarily the offence won't show on a basic or enhanced DBS check and is likely to not be disclosed at all (although a criminal conviction is a matter of public record)

Civil proceedings could mean a County Court Judgement. Then try and get a mortgage, loan, credit card, even a mobile phone contract for the next six years and it's going to be difficult.

I do believe that the whole legal framework around rail fare evasion needs urgent reform but I'm not convinced that decriminalisation is the best way to do this.

If you pay a civil court judgment promptly, there will be no public record. Only if you fail to pay up do you get a CCJ showing up on any credit search. This is the incentive to pay up!

 

[Sonic1234]

Clearly the railway (or at least most TOCs) doesn't feel the need to prosecute people as a deterrent - they're happy to take the money.

This is what the railway is really interested in - short term monetary gain. It's often said here if you aren't sufficiently contrite they might take you straight to court, but does this really happen for those that engage in some way with the process? Most don't even go through the performance of asking you to apologise and request a settlement, and for those that do you probably could write "lolz, did it for the bantz, here's some cash to make it up to you" and it would be accepted.

I expect the cases that end up in court are the ones who think ignore it and it will go away, those who have missed paperwork and false details.

Demand for rail travel has been high enough that even if people never return, there's someone else to fill the seat, so loyalty isn't a concern. Some TOCs try to price people off!

 

[Hadders]

If you pay a civil court judgment promptly, there will be no public record. Only if you fail to pay up do you get a CCJ showing up on any credit search. This is the incentive to pay up!

I realise this, but how many times will we hear stories of people claiming not to have received paperwork, moved house and paperwork gone to old address and got a CCJ in their absence etc. As I said, I agree that reform is needed but I'm not totally convinced at making it all a civil matter will make things any better.

 

[Sonic1234]

As I said, I agree that reform is needed but I'm not totally convinced at making it all a civil matter will make things any better.

The benefit to this is that it does not impact on job prospects. Being marked as a criminal is (perceived) to kill of the hope of getting a decent job.

Passengers may be more inclined to defend cases too without the criminal aspect.

 

[AdamWW]

Passengers may be more inclined to defend cases too without the criminal aspect.

Yes. How many times have we seen people warned that if they challenge the amount of an out of court settlement they risk the railway retracting the offer completely?

Also the railway can (and we have seen that it does) use the threat of prosecution as a form of coercion (now show us all the railcards you ever held or pay for past journeys again, and if you don't we'll prosecute for that one time we found you'd used one a week after it expired)

And it lets them threaten prison for fare evaders even though the liklihood of that actually happening is vanishingly small.

 

[nanstallon]

Yes. How many times have we seen people warned that if they challenge the amount of an out of court settlement they risk the railway retracting the offer completely?

Also the railway can (and we have seen that it does) use the threat of prosecution as a form of coercion (now show us all the railcards you ever held or pay for past journeys again, and if you don't we'll prosecute for that one time we found you'd used one a week after it expired)

And it lets them threaten prison for fare evaders even though the liklihood of that actually happening is vanishingly small.

Yes, the bullying must stop. Those who abuse power are destined to lose it.

 

[Hadders]

The benefit to this is that it does not impact on job prospects. Being marked as a criminal is (perceived) to kill of the hope of getting a decent job.

Passengers may be more inclined to defend cases too without the criminal aspect.

There are many jobs where a CCJ can be problematic.

 

[styles]

This may be a silly question but why am I paying the full amount of the ticket and not just the money on top that I should have paid initially. I understand it is a fine but it seems like a ridiculous amount of money. Could I ask this or is it unlikely they will take it well?

So that there is some sort of incentive to buy a ticket rather than chance it.

If the net result of not buying a ticket then being caught was having to pay the normal price for a ticket, I think most people just wouldn't bother buying before boarding (myself included to be honest).

 

[AlterEgo]

So that there is some sort of incentive to buy a ticket rather than chance it.

If the net result of not buying a ticket then being caught was having to pay the normal price for a ticket, I think most people just wouldn't bother buying before boarding (myself included to be honest).

This is already the case, baked into the passenger contract, for some types of "irregular" travel - namely taking the wrong geographic route, and travelling at a time not permitted by a time restricted ticket.

 

[Fawkes Cat]

This is already the case, baked into the passenger contract, for some types of "irregular" travel - namely taking the wrong geographic route, and travelling at a time not permitted by a time restricted ticket.

Although given that we routinely see people in trouble from these specific points, I think we can infer that understanding of this position is not understood by all (even most?) customer facing staff, and more tentatively we could perhaps think that the railway doesn't really want this to be the position.

 

[AlterEgo]

Although given that we routinely see people in trouble from these specific points, I think we can infer that understanding of this position is not understood by all (even most?) customer facing staff, and more tentatively we could perhaps think that the railway doesn't really want this to be the position.

I don't think we have ever seen anyone in trouble from a change of geographic route issue, and the issue of time restricted tickets was nixed recently when it became clear you can't malevolently report people for using a Railcard who avoided the minimum fare owing to the time restriction on it. That was rapacious behaviour by train companies which are underfunded and hate their customers.

If the railway doesn't want it to be the position it could change the passenger contract to a more customer-unfriendly position if they wanted, in order to make the railways a little bit crapper and a little more difficult and expensive to use. They do this frequently anyway, so I don't see what's stopping them, save for perhaps the risk of political fall out.

 

[Mcr Warrior]

I don't think we have ever seen anyone in trouble from a change of geographic route issue...

Not that often. This one, though, perhaps?

Penalty fare for wrong ticket, potentially off route

Hi all, I'm looking for some advice. Last week my partner and I travelled between Chester and Liverpool lime street. My partner booked the tickets via thetrainline.com while we were walking to the station. My partner is from Sweden and didn't realise there were different routes available...

www.railforums.co.uk

 

[AlterEgo]

Not that often. This one, though, perhaps?

Penalty fare for wrong ticket, potentially off route

Hi all, I'm looking for some advice. Last week my partner and I travelled between Chester and Liverpool lime street. My partner booked the tickets via thetrainline.com while we were walking to the station. My partner is from Sweden and didn't realise there were different routes available...

www.railforums.co.uk

I wasn't thinking of Penalty Fares, but rather the premise of the thread, OOC settlements. But yes, this is the only example where someone has had action taken that I can recall, for a wrongly routed ticket.