I am adding this to an old thread rather than starting a new.
As many traincrew are aware,
In order for a Ticketless Travel offence to have been committed a person must on request of an agent of the Railway (Guard/Conductor, Revenue Officer, BTP Constable/ Home Office Constable) refuse to:
1. Produce a valid ticket
2. Provide Payment for a valid ticket.
3. Or on request of an agent provide their name and address.
ALOT of guards fail to ask a person with no ticket or money for their name or address and instead just call BTP out when they have no ticket or no money, technically an offence hasnt been committed if they have not been asked to provide their address.
I watched one of these events unfold yesterday. Guard called BTP and a BTP officer turned up to find no address had been requested. On request, suprise suprise, the scrotes gave their address...
The thing was, the BTP officer was almost apologetic to the scrotes for coming over, actually saying infront of them that the guard should not have called him out.
In my opinion, even if no criminal act as taken place a uniformed officer should still advise the scrote that their action was wrong as what he did was almost condoning their dodge. On our routes there is simply not enough time to do anything with their name and address even if you are able to take it and so the back up would be nice.
I'd be interested to hear other views on the 3 fails and the BTP reaction to them.