I am horrified at how strict the rail operators are

[Alex C.]

As I mentioned on another thread, be careful what you wish for.

Almost all of the people who end up getting convicted of crimes on the National Rail network are people who failed to engage with multiple contacts and attempts to settle out of court.

If you migrate to a civil system dealt with via the county court, there does not seem to me to be reason to suggest that these people would suddenly start engaging and settling. So you would replace:

• A 6 month limit for bringing proceedings with 6 years (5 in Scotland)
• Bulk processing through SJP with bulk processing through the county court business centre
• A 1 year period during which the case "remains on your record" with 6 years
• A criminal record (if any) that has a minimal effect for most job applications with a CCJ that has a real-life effect on obtaining financial products
• For people who missed their case for whatever reason and wanted it reopening, a statutory declaration costing at most £5 with a set-aside N244 application costing £303

So again, be careful what you wish for.

I have said before that I work in a regulated profession and a conviction for anything related to dishonesty would be an issue. I wouldn't want to take the risk of not disclosing it either. This means that if a TOC began a prosecution process, even if I was 100% sure that I was in the right, I would ultimately pay what they ask for. I couldn't risk taking it to court and the judge disagreeing with me. We have seen many cases here where they use this imbalance of power to extort sums of money from people who have a legitimate case.

Contrast that with a CCJ where I can take my argument to the court and the judge will assess the situation. If the railway company wins, fine, I pay them and the matter is over (and if paid within 28 days the CCJ has no impact on my credit report).

At the very least, use the penalty fares system as intended - why are Northern pursuing so many cases in this manner when they could pursue them via a penalty fare system which has a (not good) appeal system, but is essentially decriminalised if you appeal the penalty fare.

 

[island]

In that case it seems to me the real problem is the massive *possible* punishment in RoRA and not the criminality itself. Many people who come to the forums appear to be under the impression that they could be imprisoned for their offence and I suspect that contributes both to the extortionate amounts TOCs are able to recover in OOCs as well as a general feeling of disproportionality. (Issues with how and when a PF/TIR/byelaw prosecution etc. are initiated notwithstanding.)

Points/bans aside, the maximum penalty for speeding* and for a first s5 RORA offence are the same at £1000.

*other than on a motorway

 

[Haywain]

Contrast that with a CCJ where I can take my argument to the court and the judge will assess the situation.

The irony of this argument is that the burden of proof is lower in a civil court than in a criminal court, so it is difficult to see why you think you would have a better chance of 'winning' in a civil court.

 

[Fermiboson]

I have said before that I work in a regulated profession and a conviction for anything related to dishonesty would be an issue. I wouldn't want to take the risk of not disclosing it either. This means that if a TOC began a prosecution process, even if I was 100% sure that I was in the right, I would ultimately pay what they ask for. I couldn't risk taking it to court and the judge disagreeing with me. We have seen many cases here where they use this imbalance of power to extort sums of money from people who have a legitimate case.

Contrast that with a CCJ where I can take my argument to the court and the judge will assess the situation. If the railway company wins, fine, I pay them and the matter is over (and if paid within 28 days the CCJ has no impact on my credit report).

At the very least, use the penalty fares system as intended - why are Northern pursuing so many cases in this manner when they could pursue them via a penalty fare system which has a (not good) appeal system, but is essentially decriminalised if you appeal the penalty fare.

I don’t imagine a regulated profession would take a CCJ due to dishonesty any less seriously than a criminal conviction over the same, except for any difference in ease of access of records.

As to the last point, I agree that Northern prosecutions are very unscrupulous and unprofessional but based on the amount of staff available and the cases of persistent fare evasion that I anecdotally know of, even if every time they were caught they were issued a full PF Northern would still lose more in evaded fares than they get from PFs. There’s no way for the guard to tell if someone has been previously issued with a PF. Most students in Yorks (with no deference to other regions but I am personally most familiar with Yorks) know this which is at least part of the reason why fare evasion is so endemic among students and minors in the north.

 

[Alex C.]

I don’t imagine a regulated profession would take a CCJ due to dishonesty any less seriously than a criminal conviction over the same, except for any difference in ease of access of records.

As to the last point, I agree that Northern prosecutions are very unscrupulous and unprofessional but based on the amount of staff available and the cases of persistent fare evasion that I anecdotally know of, even if every time they were caught they were issued a full PF Northern would still lose more in evaded fares than they get from PFs. There’s no way for the guard to tell if someone has been previously issued with a PF. Most students in Yorks (with no deference to other regions but I am personally most familiar with Yorks) know this which is at least part of the reason why fare evasion is so endemic among students and minors in the north.

There would be no CCJ to declare if paid within 28 days. The whole point of that process is to give you your opportunity in court to put forward your arguments, and the claimant to put forward their arguments and the judge will determine who is right. If you lose, you pay what is due but it is only if you don't pay it straight away that it goes onto your record as a CCJ.

 

[island]

The irony of this argument is that the burden of proof is lower in a civil court than in a criminal court, so it is difficult to see why you think you would have a better chance of 'winning' in a civil court.

I forgot to list that in my list of disadvantages

 

[BongoStar]

In that case it seems to me the real problem is the massive *possible* punishment in RoRA and not the criminality itself. Many people who come to the forums appear to be under the impression that they could be imprisoned for their offence and I suspect that contributes both to the extortionate amounts TOCs are able to recover in OOCs as well as a general feeling of disproportionality. (Issues with how and when a PF/TIR/byelaw prosecution etc. are initiated notwithstanding.)

Actually the real problem are those who are advocating on leniency for offenders, knowing very well that the vast majority are doing it on purpose. If you read the forum, there are greater number of habitual offenders than first time mistakes.

While I don't necessarily agree with equivalency of speeding tickets, those who see the equivalency should acknowledge that what the ToCs are doing is more lenient.

When you speed, there is zero discretion unless you go to court. It's either a speed awareness option if you have not come to their radar (and still pay close to £80) or points and still pay FPN. Go to court for this and the amount only increases. Zero option for speed awareness if you got off the first time. Get 12 points and be banned for a good time. No discretion at any stage.

In ToCs case, the guards use their discretion, the investigators use their discretion and even then there are very few, as a percentage, that actually end up being prosecuted. Most of the time, these are those who don't engage or have committed sustain evasion. The threat is always there, as is with speeding.

Asking for system change will have no impact on genuine mistakes as they still get to settle out of court but will emboldened those who do "mistakes" on purpose.

 

[Bletchleyite]

When you speed, there is zero discretion unless you go to court.

This isn't true. If caught by a police officer then they can and do apply discretion.

There's even the common (but non-mandatory) discretion applied to camera setups that speeding offences below 10% + 2mph above the limit are generally not prosecuted because it avoids issues regarding calibration of detection equipment. Perhaps an equivalent of that would be not prosecuting very small fares offences, e.g. where you're talking pence?

 

[Haywain]

When you speed, there is zero discretion unless you go to court.

Unless you can provide evidence that every speeding driver seen by a police officer is stopped and punished, I will have to say that you are wrong in this assertion.

 

[Fermiboson]

Actually the real problem are those who are advocating on leniency for offenders, knowing very well that the vast majority are doing it on purpose. If you read the forum, there are greater number of habitual offenders than first time mistakes.

While I don't necessarily agree with equivalency of speeding tickets, those who see the equivalency should acknowledge that what the ToCs are doing is more lenient.

When you speed, there is zero discretion unless you go to court. It's either a speed awareness option if you have not come to their radar (and still pay close to £80) or points and still pay FPN. Go to court for this and the amount only increases. Zero option for speed awareness if you got off the first time. Get 12 points and be banned for a good time. No discretion at any stage.

In ToCs case, the guards use their discretion, the investigators use their discretion and even then there are very few, as a percentage, that actually end up being prosecuted. Most of the time, these are those who don't engage or have committed sustain evasion. The threat is always there, as is with speeding.

Asking for system change will have no impact on genuine mistakes as they still get to settle out of court but will emboldened those who do "mistakes" on purpose.

I can’t speak for everyone but I am certainly not advocating on leniency for offenders. I am advocating for a proper prosecutions process (incl. training, consistency and tolerance for mistakes), proportionality to the crime committed (execs who fare evade 10k+ get a relative slap on the wrist but someone who cheaped out by 2 quid gets a 400 pound fine?) and accountability for the prosecuting authority.

The criminal system works on the principle of innocent until proven guilty. Most people convicted of theft are guilty of it but that doesn’t lessen the need for reforms to address the Post Office scandal.

Guards often use discretion (or are forced to use discretion by practicalities) for genuine offenders and go hard on easy-to-catch cases because they did not pass a literal vibe check. The prosecution department uses a completely different set of discretions because there is no communication between the two, and importantly often does not know what they are talking about. And sometimes they lie.

There is no discretion for speeding because there is a clear cut definition. If your speedometer is over a certain number, you are speeding. Unless you are being rammed into by a heavy vehicle in your rear, you have directly caused said speeding. This is not always true of rail ticketing.

You will see in my previous post that I agree enforcement is too lax on genuine fare evaders in many regions - this is an issue of resources and management. But I refuse to believe a system that has allowed logically contradictory statements to be submitted to court without question, convicted a deaf man in absentia for an offence which it was clear he was not guilty of with ten minutes of googling, trains its officers of the law using a Kahoot quiz, gets so many things wrong it has had to have two large tranches of convictions squashed within two months (do we need to establish a statutory procedure for squashing railway convictions?), and has created such a negative reputation that it is a genuine measurable deterrent to use of the railways does not need any sort of reform.

 

[tspaul26]

There would be no CCJ to declare if paid within 28 days. The whole point of that process is to give you your opportunity in court to put forward your arguments, and the claimant to put forward their arguments and the judge will determine who is right. If you lose, you pay what is due but it is only if you don't pay it straight away that it goes onto your record as a CCJ.

This is not quite correct.

The CCJ would not be entered onto the Register, but it nevertheless exists and a failure to disclose it if asked in respect of same may represent a lack of candour.

 

[BongoStar]

If you can provide evidence that every speeding driver seen by a police officer is stopped and punished, I will have to say that you are wrong in this assertion.

I think there is a misconception that every police or traffic officer you see has been put on duty for monitoring speeding offences.

Generally, only those trained in using the equipement in the area can record the offense. All other law enforcement will note speeding only if they are looking at other offense at the same time.

Just as no random employee of ToC can demand to see your ticket just because they feel like - they have to be authorised to see demand to see your ticket.

There's even the common (but non-mandatory) discretion applied to camera setups that speeding offences below 10% + 2mph above the limit are generally not prosecuted because it avoids issues regarding calibration of detection equipment. Perhaps an equivalent of that would be not prosecuting very small fares offences, e.g. where you're talking pence?

Agreed, and that is built in the system. However, when that buffer is exceeded, it's a in or out case. No such thing as "the driver sped, but I will let him go because of XYZ case". The camera will flash and you will get something in the mail.

In either case, with ToCs, you are either PFed on the spot - with no conviction or asked to explain and settle out of court - very few end up in prosecution. With speeding, very few do not end up with points, and almost everyone ends up with something to pay.

I think the idea of threshold sounds good, but opens up a whole discussion on the threshold. Will it be a %, so if 2% on a £300 ticket is £6, but 2% on q £5.5 is 11p. Or will it be monetary, so some ticketing errors will always be above the threshold and some will always be below. Or will we have a decision tree just as complex as the railcard decision tree.

 

[Lewisham2221]

This isn't true. If caught by a police officer then they can and do apply discretion.

There's even the common (but non-mandatory) discretion applied to camera setups that speeding offences below 10% + 2mph above the limit are generally not prosecuted because it avoids issues regarding calibration of detection equipment. Perhaps an equivalent of that would be not prosecuting very small fares offences, e.g. where you're talking pence?

Also the courts can, in exceptional circumstances, use discretion to not apply a ban for someone accumulating 12 points.

Back to rail fares, and the problem essentially boils down to:

A) How does a railway employee identify and differentiate between

• Someone who has tried, but genuinely misunderstood conditions
• Someone who has made no real attempt to ensure their ticket is valid (ignorance/neglegance)
• Someone who has deliberately tried to cheat the system

and

B) At what point do you draw the line between a "minor" offence and a more serious offence? What about someone whose offence puts them just pence above the threshold for a higher enforcement level?

Of course, the overwhelming majority of passengers travel with a valid ticket. Of those that don't, a huge number will go unnoticed. Of those noticed, the vast majority will be shown some discretion and let off with a warning, or sold a new ticket etc. Their original ticket may be flagged and that may lead to internal processes identifying patterns that warrant further action. And evidence has shown that in many of these cases, providing the correct details and engaging and responding to correspondence can result in avoiding court and avoiding prosecution. In most cases though, people are probably getting away with a less worse option than a penalty fare.

Yes, we may only be seeing a very tiny fraction of the cases where people are being prosecuted for tiny amounts. But even all of those cases would still only be an exceptionally tiny fraction of people using the railway.

 

[Fermiboson]

Also the courts can, in exceptional circumstances, use discretion to not apply a ban for someone accumulating 12 points.

Back to rail fares, and the problem essentially boils down to:

A) How does a railway employee identify and differentiate between

• Someone who has tried, but genuinely misunderstood conditions
• Someone who has made no real attempt to ensure their ticket is valid (ignorance/neglegance)
• Someone who has deliberately tried to cheat the system

and

B) At what point do you draw the line between a "minor" offence and a more serious offence? What about someone whose offence puts them just pence above the threshold for a higher enforcement level?

Of course, the overwhelming majority of passengers travel with a valid ticket. Of those that don't, a huge number will go unnoticed. Of those noticed, the vast majority will be shown some discretion and let off with a warning, or sold a new ticket etc. Their original ticket may be flagged and that may lead to internal processes identifying patterns that warrant further action. And evidence has shown that in many of these cases, providing the correct details and engaging and responding to correspondence can result in avoiding court and avoiding prosecution. In most cases though, people are probably getting away with a less worse option than a penalty fare.

Yes, we may only be seeing a very tiny fraction of the cases where people are being prosecuted for tiny amounts. But even all of those cases would still only be an exceptionally tiny fraction of people using the railway.

While I agree with all of your factual statements I would draw your attention to the last paragraph of my last post.

 

[Haywain]

I think there is a misconception that every police or traffic officer you see has been put on duty for monitoring speeding offences.

Generally, only those trained in using the equipement in the area can record the offense. All other law enforcement will note speeding only if they are looking at other offense at the same time.

In which case I amend my question to satisfy your pedantry: Unless you can provide evidence that every speeding driver seen by a suitably trained and equipped police officer is stopped and punished, I will have to say that you are wrong in this assertion. Or, to put it another way, do you really think that traffic officers stop every single speeding officer that they see?

 

[Bletchleyite]

I think the idea of threshold sounds good, but opens up a whole discussion on the threshold. Will it be a %, so if 2% on a £300 ticket is £6, but 2% on q £5.5 is 11p. Or will it be monetary, so some ticketing errors will always be above the threshold and some will always be below. Or will we have a decision tree just as complex as the railcard decision tree.

A good start would be to stop penalising people where what they did didn't cost more than what they paid for. Particularly ridiculous is penalising people for overtravelling where the fare to the station they went to was the same as that to where they booked to - and yes, that does happen. For instance, long distance fares (anything further than to London) from Wolverton, Milton Keynes Central and Bletchley are all the same, but you can just bet that if I bought, say, an Off Peak Return from MKC to Birmingham (which is priced the same for all three) and went back to Bletchley on it if an RPI was there I'd be PFed at least*. Before Penalty Fares it'd just be a case of "that costs the same, don't worry about it".

* The obvious workaround is to buy the furthest of the three, but some have outward break of journey restrictions so even that technically isn't allowed, though the staff generally accept it and the gateline even opens for some Bletchley tickets at MKC, including Bletchley-Birmingham as I did it last night!

 

[island]

This is not quite correct.

The CCJ would not be entered onto the Register, but it nevertheless exists and a failure to disclose it if asked in respect of same may represent a lack of candour.

Indeed. No different to "non-recordable" criminal offences.

 

[BongoStar]

In which case I amend my question to satisfy your pedantry: Unless you can provide evidence that every speeding driver seen by a suitably trained and equipped police officer is stopped and punished, I will have to say that you are wrong in this assertion. Or, to put it another way, do you really think that traffic officers stop every single speeding officer that they see?

Of course they don't. The ones on duty to catch speeding cars log the number plate and you receive a letter in the post. Very rarely do you hear of anyone being stopped immediately (unless dangerously driving) and punished. At most, they will be taken to custody awaiting a hear.

The point I am making is that once the radar has recorded the speeding to be out of range, the officer has very little discretion as compared to a guard who comes across an invalid ticket.

I must also highlight that most speeding offences are from camera without human input. And these camera monitor every car that goes by them without exception.

If we want to encourage ToCs to trawl through purchase history of every customer by default, without a cause, and then by default look to look for past offenses, even when a PF would currently suffice, then I think we are asking for them to be given more powers than they should have.

Equivalency with how speeding offences are treated is a minefield that will make every passenger subject to monitoring which they currently aren't subject to.

 

[Bletchleyite]

If we want to encourage ToCs to trawl through purchase history of every customer by default, without a cause, and then by default look to look for past offenses, even when a PF would currently suffice, then I think we are asking for them to be given more powers than they should have.

To some extent that already happens, though because of needing to get the data from elsewhere (e.g. Trainline) it is most often only done when suspicion already exists. I'm waiting for the first settlement letter* showing up in here for someone who finished short on a no-break-of-journey ticket with the scan out being the evidence - I think at some point we will see one ilke that. Though one limitation is that a ticket purchaser is not necessarily the person who travelled, and there's no legal compulsion to say who did travel (and therefore committed the offence), so it might be hard to actually enforce absent something like CCTV evidence of the passenger's identity if the person whose Trainline account it was simply plead not guilty and said "it wasn't me, not telling you who it was".

* Yes, I'm aware the remedy for this is an excess to the cheapest relevant walk-up fare with break of journey allowed, but we know what the TOCs are like. Northern I believe has prosecuted people for doing this on Advance fares.

 

[AlterEgo]

Actually the real problem are those who are advocating on leniency for offenders, knowing very well that the vast majority are doing it on purpose.

The vast majority of whom? People who have ticket irregularities? I don’t think that’s the case at all.

If you read the forum, there are greater number of habitual offenders than first time mistakes.

Those are the people who are - perhaps justifiably - more fearful of the consequences so we should expect to hear from them more.

While I don't necessarily agree with equivalency of speeding tickets, those who see the equivalency should acknowledge that what the ToCs are doing is more lenient.

When you speed, there is zero discretion unless you go to court. It's either a speed awareness option if you have not come to their radar (and still pay close to £80) or points and still pay FPN. Go to court for this and the amount only increases. Zero option for speed awareness if you got off the first time. Get 12 points and be banned for a good time. No discretion at any stage.

There absolutely is discretion, even once you get to 12 points!

In ToCs case, the guards use their discretion, the investigators use their discretion

They usually don’t. That’s very naive.

and even then there are very few, as a percentage, that actually end up being prosecuted. Most of the time, these are those who don't engage or have committed sustain evasion. The threat is always there, as is with speeding.

But not engaging is not always deliberate. The system does, habitually, criminalise people who have no ill intent at all.

Asking for system change will have no impact on genuine mistakes as they still get to settle out of court

but will emboldened those who do "mistakes" on purpose.

It won’t, to be honest. In many jurisdictions ticket irregularities - unless quite plainly deliberate - aren’t a criminal matter.

 

[Bletchleyite]

They usually don’t. That’s very naive.

Guards very often do - far more likely to sell a new ticket (often even a discounted one) than to sent a TIR in, unless the passenger refuses to pay. RPIs mostly don't, and prosecution teams appear to take anything sent to them as correct without checking given some of the stuff we see on here.

 

[Haywain]

They usually don’t. That’s very naive.

Guards use discretion very regularly. Even from the small number of guards active on the forums it is relatively easy to find instances of discretion being used in the passenger's favour.

 

[AlterEgo]

Guards use discretion very regularly. Even from the small number of guards active on the forums it is relatively easy to find instances of discretion being used in the passenger's favour.

Agreed. To be clear I was referring to the investigators in that quote, although I accept it wasn’t easy to pick up!

 

[Starmill]

I didn’t say that. Mistakes the contravene legislation are criminal matters. In every aspect of life, it is our responsibility to understand what is legal and what is not, and accept that when we do something that contravenes law there are consequences. Surely you wouldn’t want to argue [for example] that someone who MISTAKENLY believed they could drink five pints of beer and drive a car should be treated leniently?


Does it really? Do you mean overcharging or charging [in your view] too much? If passengers are being overcharged then yes there should be some form of retribution, but its not criminal [law] to charge a passenger more than he minimum they needed to pay. If you just think fares are too expensive then I think some rail fares are too high, but I also accept there’s not much I can do about it (and not much anyone with any influence will do about it). So I just get creative with split fares and the like, which is an option open to anyone who’s prepared to do a little bit of legwork and doesn’t expect everything to be handed to them on a plate.

So you're saying you'd be willing to voluntarily submit yourself to criminal sanction for something entirely trivial? Can you give me your view if LNER should have been given a criminal sanction for the alleged mistake in this case:

LNER app / website overcharging for advance tickets

For an immediate departure from Chester to Warrington Bank Quay LNER quotes £7.60 on the 1836. Every other service I can see such as Trainsplit and Trainline is offering the same thing at £5.90:

www.railforums.co.uk

?

 

[Bletchleyite]

I didn’t say that. Mistakes the contravene legislation are criminal matters. In every aspect of life, it is our responsibility to understand what is legal and what is not, and accept that when we do something that contravenes law there are consequences. Surely you wouldn’t want to argue [for example] that someone who MISTAKENLY believed they could drink five pints of beer and drive a car should be treated leniently?

There is a very, very big difference between legislation that exists to prevent people being killed by drink drivers and legislation that deals with someone having underpaid their train fare by a few pence.