Friend accused of fare evasion by Northern

[Rick1980]

Hello, hoping for some opinions and advice, as my law experience is more on the side of debt recovery and consumer rights.

I've been asked to help a friend who has recieved a letter from Northern Rail. From reading up, seems to be their standard first letter in these sorts of matters, giving 14 days for her response.

First that letter was dated 13 days prior to the day of delivery, and gives her 14 days from the date of the letter to respond (unfortunatley she didn't keep the envelope). She called Northern Rail, who pretty much told her that the post office was not their problem.

She traveled with friends from Blackburn to Manchester, and paid cash for her one way ticket at Blackburn. Having left the train at Manchester, she threw her ticket into a litter bin on her way out of the station. Just outside the station exit, she was asked to produce her ticket which ofcourse she could not do. As the discussion drew on she offered to immidiatley buy a replacment ticket for the one she threw away. She was told she could not.

As far as I can figure out, it seems she has comitted a breach of the byelaws, by failing to produce her ticket when asked. But no mention of how long after a journey a ticket a ticket should be retained for exists in the byelaws, which begs the question how long is reasonable ? Should everyone retain tickets for 5 years, months, weeks, days, minutes after completing a journey ?

The letter mentions an evidential report and invites comment on it, but does not provide a copy of the said report. Surely she is entitled to know exactly what she is being accused of before making comment ? The letter is very vague indeed for a legal document IMHO

Whilst it seems to me that Northern Rail have a case against her for violation of the byelaws by not producing her ticket, when applying the law in a purely black and white manner. I realise that ignorance is no defence, though she was genuinley unaware of a requirment for her to retain her ticket once her journey was complete.
But surely any case as to Fare Evasion would need to be proved beyond reasonable doubt ? As she did not evade a fare, I fail to understand how they could prove beyond reasonable doubt otherwise.

The letter also states that "offences of this nature are recordable" It was my understanding that a violation of the railway byelaws was non-recordable.

Any comments and/or advice would be greatly recieved.

Rick

 

[ian959]

As long as the request to show her ticket was on railway property then your friend is pretty much done for. The question as to when her journey has ended is an interesting one but whilst still on railway property then I suspect in a legal sense she probably has not ended her journey.

Fare evasion is a strict liability offence and no proof beyond reasonable doubt is required. Could your friend show a valid ticket for her journey? No. Strict liability, no proof necessary.

The evidential report referred to would be a record of the conversation your friend had with the RPI and at this stage there is no requirement for a copy to be provided to her. She would get a copy were the matter to go to court.

The question of offences being recordable, I would suspect that Northern mean that THEY keep a record of offences so that if a further breach occurs they would go down a different route with prosecution. Assuming your friend has not been naughty before this time round she will most likely cop an £80 fixed penalty plus the cost of the ticket.

Your friend should write back clearly explaining the events and making it clear that she did not know that she should retain her ticket until after she leaves railway property. The letter should be concise and express remorse, but in this case also politely ask (after everything else) for clarification as to where she can find in the NRCoC or elsewhere a definition of the point at which a ticket is no longer needed to be retained (that is what is the definition of the end of a journey).

 

[Squaddie]

As she had only just thrown her ticket away, why did she not just go back to the bin and retrieve it? (And, I suppose, why did she buy a one-way ticket? Was she not planning on returning to Blackburn that day?)

 

[Rick1980]

Thanks for the comments.

From what I've read up on online, being convicted of fare evasion will result in a criminal record, which will be recorded. Have I missed something there ? And what makes that so different from other criminal cases, where the burden of PROOF is on the prosecution, and one is considered innocent until proven guilty.

If what you say about holding a valid ticket inside the station is true, what happens if you have popped into a station to buy a newspaper at a kiosk inside ? Or cut through a station which has several exits ? Or even just to check a time table ? To be clear she was within what I would consider to be the "public" area of the station and had already passed through the barriers.

I don't know why there was no attempt to find the ticket, I will ask her about that. Her mum picked her up from Manchester, hence no need for a return ticket.

 

[Rich McLean]

There are two types of offences.

1) A Byelaw offence is a strict liability offence, which is a civil matter and does not carry a criminal record, as they are not criminal laws.

2) Regulations of Railways Act (RoRA) however comes under criminal law and does carry a criminal record. A secton 5 would however require a lot more evidence, as they would have to prove that she deliberately tried to avoid the fare, which is not the case here.

 

[evoluzione]

Why did she not retrieve her ticket if just thrown away? It would have been on the top of the rubbish.

Also might be worth asking what exit your friend tried to leave from, I'm guessing it was Man Vic, anyone trying to sneak around the main exit and ticket check to use one of the other exists is usually followed and stopped.

 

[Rick1980]

Apparently the thought never occured to her, and apparently not to the inspector that stopped her, to look for the ticket. Though really would that prove anything at that point as there would be no way to tell if that was actually her ticket or someone elses ? Yes I realize that you would have to be lucky to find an identical ticket in the same bin, so I'm being picky here

It was Manchester Victoria, and they were heading directly to the MEN arena, but I don't know for sure which exit, if you think it could be relevant I will ask.

Thanks for confirming that Rich, so would a Byelaws offence be dealt with by a county court rather than magistrates then being a civil matter not criminal ?

Having gone through the terms and conditions, and terms of carriage etc, I cannot find anywhere that defines the point that a journey has ended and a ticket no longer required. If there was a definition somewhere it would make matters so much simpler to decide if she has unwittingly committed an offence or not.

Thanks again for ALL the comments, it's very useful.

Rick

 

[185]

Don't know whether this is stating the obvious, but there are no bins at Manchester's stations. For security, they all went 25 years ago.

 

[Rick1980]

That's very interesting, Thanks. Best go ask her again what she did with her ticket

 

[snail]

It was Manchester Victoria, and they were heading directly to the MEN arena, but I don't know for sure which exit, if you think it could be relevant I will ask.

Yes, that would be very relevant. If she went up the stairs to the overbridge from the platforms then she wouldn't have left the station until she reached the arena. The other ways to the arena are via the concourse, usually after a barrier check, or by leaving P3 at the west end where the exit is directly off the platform.

As 185 points out, there are no litter bins at Victoria and I don't really see how she could be challenged 'just outside the station exit' without passing a ticket check if going through the concourse. It can happen though that the manual barrier isn't on. I think the most likely place this happened is on the overbridge to the arena as this is a known escape route for fare evaders (up to the arena then back down using the public stairs that take you directly to the concourse).

Whatever, she should respond to Northern explaining exactly what she did and probably expect a demand for £80 + the fare to settle the matter.

 

[sheff1]

The question of when a journey ends is a good one. Manchester Victoria is not a Compulsory Ticket area so it is perfectly reasonable to be in the upper MEN entrance area without ever having travelled on a train (not the case here, of course).

If Northern don't want the exit from the platforms to the MEN used they should close it. Whilst it remains open then I cannot understand why they don't man it for the same hours as they man the concourse entrance.

 

[DaveNewcastle]

As others have pointed out, it is Northern's preferred policy at the present to invite those passengers whom are detected without a ticket for the first time to pay a fee of £80 to dispose of the matter.
In doing so, we would have no need to consider whether it might be a Railway Byelaw offence or a Regulation of Railways Act offence, nor whether the offence might be 'recordable', nor how we should interpret the duration after travel, or places in which one should be able to present a ticket. These are would be of no significance.

However, in the event that Northern do not offer that option, or that the passenger declines it, then I can agree with the posts above with two additional points to make:

1. The Company retains the right to prosecute either a Byelaw offence OR a RoRA offence and to decide which of these to prosecute AFTER having received the passenger's written statement of events. The reply will be relevant in making that decision and any statement which confirms that either offence was committed is likely to increase the prospects of a successful prosecution.

2. The investigator in the Company may be particularly interested, as I was, in the statement that the passenger offered to make a payment in respect of the fare for the journey taken. They may reflect on whether it is usual for a passenger who has already paid their fare and travelled with a valid ticket to offer to make a second payment. They may consider whether that is an offer more commonly experienced when interviewing passengers who had not already paid their fare. They may make an inference from that offer and that the passenger made no suggestion of a proposal to recover the ticket which they had claimed to have held and then discarded. The passenger might like to anticipate that inference when writing about those actions.

Finally, and still assuming that the £80 'Fixed Penalty' is not the outcome, I will add that the place at which the ticket was reasonably requested may be beyond the station perimeter if a RoRA offence with 'intent to avoid payment' is being prosecuted. I struggle to imagine that the Byelaw offence of 'failing to produce for inspection' would be prosecuted where the place of the request was beyond the perimeter. It has been determined in case law that, for the purposes of ticket inspection, a passenger "is still travelling" before a ticket inspection at their destination station.

 

[andykn]

Don't know whether this is stating the obvious, but there are no bins at Manchester's stations. For security, they all went 25 years ago.

I know someone else has said that too, but bins are coming back at stations in the South east now to cope with free papers apart from anything else, they're just circular metal bin bag holders with transparent plastic bin bags suspended from them.

 

[Chapeltom]

I know someone else has said that too, but bins are coming back at stations in the South east now to cope with free papers apart from anything else, they're just circular metal bin bag holders with transparent plastic bin bags suspended from them.

They had one of those on Platform 5 at Manchester Oxford Road and it disappeared. Its certainly an annoyance having rubbish and having to put it on the floor (if I'm getting on a train I don't really like sticking it there!!) at Manchester Picc I see cleaners all the time but where else can it go if you've not got long till a train or you don't want to have to walk down station approach in an attempt to find a bin! That said I'm not moaning, such are the times we live in better safe than sorry eh. :roll:

I've certainly never seen any bins at Manchester Vic and think we've established the OP needs to ask their friend for clarification.

 

[jon0844]

Apparently the thought never occured to her, and apparently not to the inspector that stopped her, to look for the ticket. Though really would that prove anything at that point as there would be no way to tell if that was actually her ticket or someone elses ? Yes I realize that you would have to be lucky to find an identical ticket in the same bin, so I'm being picky here

If the person could say what station they came from, how much was paid and how it was paid, and that ticket was found I doubt many people would argue it was just luck.

For one, anyone else who just threw the identical ticket away would have surely been stopped too?

Sent from my SGP311 using Tapatalk HD

 

[Flamingo]

If the person could say what station they came from, how much was paid and how it was paid, and that ticket was found I doubt many people would argue it was just luck.

For one, anyone else who just threw the identical ticket away would have surely been stopped too?

Sent from my SGP311 using Tapatalk HD

I think Dave has summed the situation up nicely with point 2 of his post.

if I was the OP's friend, pay the £80 if offered.

 

[jon0844]

Indeed. It does sound to me like the bin story is probably not true.

 

[snail]

They had one of those on Platform 5 at Manchester Oxford Road and it disappeared. Its certainly an annoyance having rubbish and having to put it on the floor (if I'm getting on a train I don't really like sticking it there!!)

I agree. It's not a blanket ban across the NW network as they have bins at Salford Central.

 

[MichaelAMW]

Fare evasion is a strict liability offence and no proof beyond reasonable doubt is required. Could your friend show a valid ticket for her journey? No. Strict liability, no proof necessary.

Just a point of info, for what it's worth: that statement is not true. I would say that "evasion" is the RoRA idea of intent to avoid payment, which is not strict liability. The SL offence would be failure to produce a ticket when asked for one, which is what was being outlined by the OP as the problem.

 

[Rick1980]

To answer a couple of questions asked,

She went through the concourse, and there was no ticket check at the barriers. It wasn't until she was through the barriers that she threw away her ticket, and if it wasn't a bin she isn't sure what she threw her ticket into, she thinks maybe it was a cleaners cart, but can't recall with any certinaty.

She offered to buy a replacment ticket in a panic when the inspector started talking about reporting her. I can honestly believe that of her.

It seems to me that she has unwittingly comitted a byelaw offence, and given that ignorance can be no defence, it's gonna have to be a lesson learned for her.

What she is really worried about is the fare evasion and a possible criminal record effecting her job, which I think is fair enough to say is very unlikely to happen.

Thank you for all the comments and advice, it has been a great deal of help.

 

[Harpers Tate]

I am not familiar with the station in question. However, I think it wholly reasonable that, if there is a barrier and if a passenger passes through that barrier, then, regardless of whether there was a ticket check in place, the barrier signifies the end of the journey and one might reasobaly be expected to dispose of a ticket, by any means available, once past the barrier. And any subsequent revenue protection activity ought to be seen as entrapment.

 

[Solent&Wessex]

I am not familiar with the station in question. However, I think it wholly reasonable that, if there is a barrier and if a passenger passes through that barrier, then, regardless of whether there was a ticket check in place, the barrier signifies the end of the journey and one might reasobaly be expected to dispose of a ticket, by any means available, once past the barrier. And any subsequent revenue protection activity ought to be seen as entrapment.

There are no fixed barriers at Victoria. There are G4S staff who set up temporary barriers using portable fences, extendable tapes etc. They are normally always in the same place, which is between platforms and concourse. They will occasionally do checks between the footbridge and the MEN entrance, but this wouldn't involve going via the concourse first. Indeed in all my regular trips through Victoria I have NEVER seen them do any checks on the outside of the concourse.

 

[W230]

She went through the concourse, and there was no ticket check at the barriers. It wasn't until she was through the barriers that she threw away her ticket, and if it wasn't a bin she isn't sure what she threw her ticket into, she thinks maybe it was a cleaners cart, but can't recall with any certinaty.

Im not familiar with Blackburn but: Did she buy from a ticket office/ticket machine at Blackburn or on the train? Did she use a credit/debit card? Is there CCTV? These should all help to prove her story - especially the usage of a debit/credit card.

I have to apologise though and admit I am cynical to towards the description of events.

 

[455driver]

What she is really worried about is the fare evasion and a possible criminal record effecting her job,

She will only get a criminal record if prosecuted using the Regulation of Railways Act (RoRA) and not if they go for the far simpler byelaw offence, in 99% of first time offences that go to prosecution it is normally the byelaw offence that is used and not the RoRA so I would try to stop worrying about the criminal record for now.