Fare evasion pos prosecution

[choparela]

I was stopped by undercover fraud inspector and didn’t have a complete ticket for my journey. I have received a letter saying matter has been past to the prosecution team and I have 7 days to respond.
Have spoken to a solicitor who hopefully can help avoid court and criminal conviction for obs reasons.
Saying I need to disclose all the time I travelled without a valid ticket, half ticket etc over the past year from my Trainline account.
Is this best practice as seems I would be incriminating myself even more than just for the half ticket I was travelling on??
Inspector took my Trainline account details so they could check my half tickets but how would they know what days I didn’t have a complete ticket for unless I tell them??
I could be travelling different locations for work, staying an and house etc…
Does this seem wise to do or is it best practice??
Any advice greatly appreciated.
Thanks

 

[skyhigh]

If you're paying for professional advice listen to them rather than random people on the internet.

 

[Deafdoggie]

Listening to your paid legal representative is best policy. Honesty is also the best policy

 

[Chew Chew]

So instead of telling the truth you want people on here to tell you to lie?

When in a hole it is better to stop digging as opposed to continuing to dig to see just how deep you can get.

 

[AndroidBango]

I was stopped by undercover fraud inspector and didn’t have a complete ticket for my journey. I have received a letter saying matter has been past to the prosecution team and I have 7 days to respond.
Have spoken to a solicitor who hopefully can help avoid court and criminal conviction for obs reasons.
Saying I need to disclose all the time I travelled without a valid ticket, half ticket etc over the past year from my Trainline account.
Is this best practice as seems I would be incriminating myself even more than just for the half ticket I was travelling on??
Inspector took my Trainline account details so they could check my half tickets but how would they know what days I didn’t have a complete ticket for unless I tell them??
I could be travelling different locations for work, staying an and house etc…
Does this seem wise to do or is it best practice??
Any advice greatly appreciated.
Thanks

They will likely just assume you were dodging fares every day unless you can explain/demonstrate otherwise. Listen to your solicitor.

 

[SteveM70]

Have spoken to a solicitor who hopefully can help avoid court and criminal conviction for obs reasons.
Saying I need to disclose all the time I travelled without a valid ticket, half ticket etc over the past year from my Trainline account.
Is this best practice as seems I would be incriminating myself even more than just for the half ticket I was travelling on??
Inspector took my Trainline account details so they could check my half tickets but how would they know what days I didn’t have a complete ticket for unless I tell them??

Listen to your solicitor

The train company will get access to your Trainline purchase history; you can't prevent that

If they see a pattern of short purchases they will assume its because you've been evading fares, unless you can demonstrate for specific dates and times that you really did only make the shorter journey

 

[Skimpot flyer]

Listen to your solicitor.
They will KNOW from your online purchase history exactly how many times you short fared.
Without knowing the stations involved, it's difficult to be precise, but if you travelled from an unbarriered station way out in the countryside and only bought short tickets from the penultimate station before your destination, you'd be stretching credibility to say those tickets were the actual journey you made on such days.

 

[Sophichi]

I was stopped by undercover fraud inspector and didn’t have a complete ticket for my journey. I have received a letter saying matter has been past to the prosecution team and I have 7 days to respond.
Have spoken to a solicitor who hopefully can help avoid court and criminal conviction for obs reasons.
Saying I need to disclose all the time I travelled without a valid ticket, half ticket etc over the past year from my Trainline account.
Is this best practice as seems I would be incriminating myself even more than just for the half ticket I was travelling on??
Inspector took my Trainline account details so they could check my half tickets but how would they know what days I didn’t have a complete ticket for unless I tell them??
I could be travelling different locations for work, staying an and house etc…
Does this seem wise to do or is it best practice??
Any advice greatly appreciated.
Thanks

Could you please tell me what solicitor you used and if it helped? Thank you so much!

 

[KittyBoat76]

Could you please tell me what solicitor you used and if it helped? Thank you so much!

Hi, I used Manak Solicitors for my fare evasion case, the guy (Samir) who helped me was very professional & settled my pretty complex case within a week. That would be my recommendation if looking to use one.

 

[Mcr Warrior]

@KittyBoat76. Good that you managed to get the matter satisfactorily resolved.

If you don't mind being also asked, how much was the settlement amount, how much were the solicitors' fees on top, and on how many occasions did you travel using allegedly incomplete tickets for the entire journey(s) made.

Be useful to know, as from time to time, we get folk coming on here asking for advice when, for example, they've been short-faring for several months and the train company is then wanting a big wodge of cash off them.

 

[KittyBoat76]

@KittyBoat76. Good that you managed to get the matter satisfactorily resolved.

If you don't mind being also asked, how much was the settlement amount, how much were the solicitors' fees on top, and on how many occasions did you travel using allegedly incomplete tickets for the entire journey(s) made.

Be useful to know, as from time to time, we get folk coming on here asking for advice when, for example, they've been short-faring for several months and the train company is then wanting a big wodge of cash off them.

Hi there, I am happy to share rough amounts.
Solicitor fees were £125 for initial consultant then £600 additionally to deal with all correspondence with the rail company on my behalf.
Settlement was reached within a week and this was also before I had even received any letter/correpondence from the TOC, so was well worth the solicitor for me personally to save months of stress.
Settlement was (I think) based on the full fare of each journey short fared which was around 150 journeys, and amounted to a few thousand pounds.
Exepensive and stupid mistake I am well aware, but couldn’t have reached that without this forum so I like to check in to see how others get on/if I can offer any advice from someone who has been in a similar situation. I love that this forum is full of helpful individuals who wish to help, despite most having broken the law.
Well & truly learnt my lesson, and happy to not have a conviction given the large scale of evasion here, which I naively didn’t see as a big deal at the time. As I say, lesson learnt and I always pay the correct fare now, which I guess is what the point of all of this was!

 

[spag23]

I love that this forum is full of helpful individuals who wish to help, despite most having broken the law.

I resent this implication that we "helpful individuals" are mostly law breakers.

 

[KittyBoat76]

I resent this implication that we "helpful individuals" are mostly law breakers.

Ha ha, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it in that way! Now I re read that sentence back, I definitely didn’t word it very well. Apologies