Letter requiring mitigating circumstances.

[Jason12]

Afraid I am on mobile - is there a file attached to that post that I am supposed to be able to see?

No. OP has not attached a file.

 

[AlterEgo]

It’s important for us to know what was written. If it is lengthy and contains the inadvisable defence of “I usually buy tickets for my brother” a second letter is more difficult to compose. As a rule you shouldn’t use all your ammunition in the first letter, becuase sending a second one repeating yourself doesn’t help much. The second letter should be different in content and be responding to the most recent correspondence.

 

[londonbridge]

It is not that common for children to have debit cards at 15

So all the school kids who come in the shop where I work twice a day ( before and after school) buying pastries, doughnuts, sweets and fizzy pop are using their parents cards then??

 

[gray1404]

I was waiting till very close to the 14-day deadline for applying to this letter. Basically you need to write back with pretty much the same wording of your first letter. It is standard practise for a TIL to waste your time, their time and the train companies time and make it cost more money by rejecting the first response.

 

[Unistudent101]

Thank you for your advice, I will attempt a second letter reiterating how much I understand the severity of the rules put into place to prevent ticket fare evasion, but because I went into a lot of detail on this I'm my first draft I’m quite stuck on what more to add.


I emphasised on how much I understood that I had no one to blame but myself for not ensuring it was the valid ticket, and pleaded for an out of court settlement.

Apologies if my writing is difficult to read.

It’s important for us to know what was written. If it is lengthy and contains the inadvisable defence of “I usually buy tickets for my brother” a second letter is more difficult to compose. As a rule you shouldn’t use all your ammunition in the first letter, becuase sending a second one repeating yourself doesn’t help much. The second letter should be different in content and be responding to the most recent correspondence.

Sorry I was at work and forgot to attach the file. This is the first letter I wrote to them, apologies if my hand writing is difficult to read.

I was waiting till very close to the 14-day deadline for applying to this letter. Basically you need to write back with pretty much the same wording of your first letter. It is standard practise for a TIL to waste your time, their time and the train companies time and make it cost more money by rejecting the first response.

Hi there, did this also happen to you? And what was the final outcome?
Thanks

 

[AlterEgo]

I wouldn’t respond immediately. Use up as much of the deadline as you can, because they only have until 3rd June to lay papers before a court.

 

[Unistudent101]

I wouldn’t respond immediately. Use up as much of the deadline as you can, because they only have until 3rd June to lay papers before a court.

Yeah when I phoned a solicitor who specialises in this area he said just this. However, I’m a bit worried as I wouldn’t want to annoy them by doing this and push them to make a rushed decision.

 

[AlterEgo]

Yeah when I phoned a solicitor who specialises in this area he said just this. However, I’m a bit worried as I wouldn’t want to annoy them by doing this and push them to make a rushed decision.

They’ve dragged their heels so far, it’s entirely on them. This is not a complicated case and it took them several months to even write. Play for time.

 

[WesternLancer]

Yeah when I phoned a solicitor who specialises in this area he said just this. However, I’m a bit worried as I wouldn’t want to annoy them by doing this and push them to make a rushed decision.

My advice would be to try to get your next apology and regret letter down to one side if you can - which should be possible as no reason to repeat the background explanation stuff I would tend to think - good luck.

 

[gray1404]

No this is based on my experience of seeing many cases involving this company as they pretty much respond in an identical way so often.

You need to condense your letter down to no more than one side of A4 though.

 

[30907]

No this is based on my experience of seeing many cases involving this company as they pretty much respond in an identical way so often.

You need to condense your letter down to no more than one side of A4 though.

Agreed.

And if possible, type it rather than handwrite it (even as clearly as you have done) - make it as easy as possible for the person who reads it.

 

[Unistudent101]

Agreed.

And if possible, type it rather than handwrite it (even as clearly as you have done) - make it as easy as possible for the person who reads it.

Do you think phoning them would achieve a better result? Because I’ve been told they’re more understanding when you make the effort to stay in contact by calling to speak to them.

No this is based on my experience of seeing many cases involving this company as they pretty much respond in an identical way so often.

You need to condense your letter down to no more than one side of A4 though.

Thanks will do. I’ve seen on other threads on here that being consistent has achieved an out of court settlement.

My advice would be to try to get your next apology and regret letter down to one side if you can - which should be possible as no reason to repeat the background explanation stuff I would tend to think - good luck.

Thanks, I have drafted my letter to respond, I’m now just contemplating whether to send it immediately or wait as I wouldn’t want to annoy them by keeping them waiting.

 

[WesternLancer]

Do you think phoning them would achieve a better result? Because I’ve been told they’re more understanding when you make the effort to stay in contact by calling to speak to them.


Thanks will do. I’ve seen on other threads on here that being consistent has achieved an out of court settlement.


Thanks, I have drafted my letter to respond, I’m now just contemplating whether to send it immediately or wait as I wouldn’t want to annoy them by keeping them waiting.

My instinct is not to leave it too long to send to them, but I note you did get advice from a solicitor that indicated a little the other way IIRC. Do not risk missing their deadline or it will just get automatically sent to court I suspect as soon as they do not hear back from you.

If you want to post your new draft it may be that people can make helpful comments, but do not feel obliged to post it here if you do not wish to.

Speaking personally about the point you make about phoning them (and others may suggest it might work) I am always hesitant myself. It's easy to say something in a conversation that you might regret (eg incriminate yourself further for example) whereas when in writing you can take care about what you say. And it is less easy to keep a record of what is said in a phone call - unless you record the phone call.

 

[island]

Do you think phoning them would achieve a better result? Because I’ve been told they’re more understanding when you make the effort to stay in contact by calling to speak to them.

They generally don't discuss cases over the phone as it can result in he-said she-said situations.

 

[Hadders]

They generally don't discuss cases over the phone as it can result in he-said she-said situations.

I agree with this and wouldn’t advise phoning them.

 

[AlterEgo]

My instinct is not to leave it too long to send to them, but I note you did get advice from a solicitor that indicated a little the other way IIRC. Do not risk missing their deadline or it will just get automatically sent to court I suspect as soon as they do not hear back from you.

Send it special delivery on the last working day before the deadline. The company is very close to being out of time.

 

[Deafdoggie]

Send it special delivery on the last working day before the deadline. The company is very close to being out of time.

Just to clarify. I'd send it Special Delivery so it's due to ARRIVE on the last working day before the deadline.

 

[Fawkes Cat]

Send it special delivery on the last working day before the deadline. The company is very close to being out of time.

Just to clarify. I'd send it Special Delivery so it's due to ARRIVE on the last working day before the deadline.

I'd agree with @Deafdoggie . If the railway are running out of time to decide on whether to prosecute or not, then they will make their decision very shortly after the reply deadline. If someone's letter is still in the post, then it won't be considered.

It would be possible to argue in court that a reply had been made, but the obvious response to that is that no-one could reasonably expect a letter to be delivered on the same day that it was posted - so the railway would have done nothing wrong in ignoring the late letter.

 

[Unistudent101]

I'd agree with @Deafdoggie . If the railway are running out of time to decide on whether to prosecute or not, then they will make their decision very shortly after the reply deadline. If someone's letter is still in the post, then it won't be considered.

It would be possible to argue in court that a reply had been made, but the obvious response to that is that no-one could reasonably expect a letter to be delivered on the same day that it was posted - so the railway would have done nothing wrong in ignoring the late letter.

Do you think even if the post arrives on time so close to the deadline, then they would make a rushed decision an lean more to prosecute?

Send it special delivery on the last working day before the deadline. The company is very close to being out of time.

Thanks for the advice, do you think this will agitate them? Because at the end of the day this is last thing I would want to do to someone who will be deciding whether to seek to prosecute or not.

Just to clarify. I'd send it Special Delivery so it's due to ARRIVE on the last working day before the deadline.

I was think of typing the letter the scanning and sending it via email like I did my previous letter, this way they’d receive it immediately.

 

[WesternLancer]

Do you think even if the post arrives on time so close to the deadline, then they would make a rushed decision an lean more to prosecute?

I do personally think that might be a risk. I also fear you can not 100% gaurantee Royal Mail special delivery dates actually being delivered...

 

[Fawkes Cat]

Do you think even if the post arrives on time so close to the deadline, then they would make a rushed decision an lean more to prosecute?

Sorry, no idea.

But in principle, if you have been given until (for example) 29 February to reply, then I would expect a reply received on 29 February to be considered just as thoroughly as one received on 1 January. But a reply received on 1 March would be late so might be ignored.

 

[Unistudent101]

I agree with this and wouldn’t advise phoning them.

Noted, thanks for the advice.

Sorry, no idea.

But in principle, if you have been given until (for example) 29 February to reply, then I would expect a reply received on 29 February to be considered just as thoroughly as one received on 1 January. But a reply received on 1 March would be late so might be ignored.

Fair enough, I’m thinking of potentially sending the letter on Tuesday or Monday.

I do personally think that might be a risk. I also fear you can not 100% gaurantee Royal Mail special delivery dates actually being delivered...

Yeah I don’t trust postage to have it arrived at their address on time, so the safest bet for me would be to scan the letter and email, this way there is no risk of the letter being lost in the post.

 

[AlterEgo]

Thanks for the advice, do you think this will agitate them? Because at the end of the day this is last thing I would want to do to someone who will be deciding whether to seek to prosecute or not.

The company does not get "agitated", nor does it care about your personal circumstances.

The company is in the process of collecting evidence from you to prosecute you and hopefully submit it to a court. It is not contacting you to try and decide if you are some sort of "good person", merely ascertaining whether you have a valid defence. As it happens, you do not have any defence whatsoever against a Bylaw offence and a very poor one against a Regulation of Railways offence (which is more serious and requires intent be shown). Wilfully submitting to them, and quickly, is not in your interests. Further, you have advanced a defence which will require you to potentially call your brother, who is a child, as your witness, if it reaches court and you choose to plead not guilty to a Regulation of Railways offence. If you (sensibly) elect not to use this defence in court, the court will have questions as to why you told the company about this defence but declined to use it in court.

I urge posters here to stop advising people who receive letters (from TOCs other than those with prosecution policies geared towards settlement by default) to respond as fast as possible and with detail of their circumstances. These letters are evidence and can be used in court. "I'm a student" is not only irrelevant, but rather invites the question in court "so it would be fair to say money is fairly tight; is that why you chose to evade the rail fare?". Almost everything you tell them, especially about your personal circumstances, can be potentially incriminating. "I don't have much money" is on one hand a plea for leniency but could also be construed as evidence of intent to commit the offence in the first place.

So far the company has taken 5 and a half months to reach this stage and it took them two weeks or more to even send a standard letter saying "ok thanks for admitting to an offence, and yes we are still minded to prosecute". You have until 29th May, a Sunday, to get the letter back to them. If they receive it on the 27th, they have four days to open it, read it, process it and submit your case for prosecution.

If they go past 3rd June (a bank holiday too!) without submitting papers to the magistrates' court, boom, they can't prosecute you for any summary-only offence. I would not be giving them more time than they need!

Sorry, no idea.

But in principle, if you have been given until (for example) 29 February to reply, then I would expect a reply received on 29 February to be considered just as thoroughly as one received on 1 January. But a reply received on 1 March would be late so might be ignored.

A reply is evidence even if it is late. It would not be ignored, although there is the risk the company really gets its act together all of a sudden and submits the case immediately on expiry of their own arbitrary deadline.

 

[Jason12]

The company does not get "agitated", nor does it care about your personal circumstances.

The company is in the process of collecting evidence from you to prosecute you and hopefully submit it to a court. It is not contacting you to try and decide if you are some sort of "good person", merely ascertaining whether you have a valid defence.

I completely agree. I am not a lawyer, but I'm sure a lawyer would say that this should be in the forefront of the minds of anyone offering advice to persons in receipt of a letter of intention to prosecute. There may be differences between train companies' policies, but advice to be as forthcoming and cooperative as possible should only be given where the person has indicated they know what, exactly, they are being accused of, consequently admit their guilt and indicate they would plead guilty if/when they were prosecuted.

It seems to me the OP has not done that, but is trying to argue a (fairly weak) defence to a potential RoRA charge, by letter of mitigation and has still not fully accepted the fact they have no defence at all to the Bylaw offence. If anything, the first letter of mitigation gave the company a stronger case to argue if they seek to show intent.

You have until 29th May, a Sunday, to get the letter back to them. If they receive it on the 27th, they have four days to open it, read it, process it and submit your case for prosecution.

If they go past 3rd June (a bank holiday too!) without submitting papers to the magistrates' court, boom, they can't prosecute you for any summary-only offence. I would not be giving them more time than they need!

I agree again, but I would go further and suggest that unless a second letter of mitigation contains something which is likely to cause the company to believe that offering a settlement, rather than prosecuting the offence(s) they have in mind, is in the company's best interests, it might be better for the OP not to send that letter at all and remove the 27th from the equation also.

Having said that, while playing out time could result in the deadline for prosecution being missed, it would have to be a fairly incompetent office which had no procedures in place to stop that happening by default.

 

[some bloke]

I wonder if some confusion has been caused by TIL's letters.

Firstly, do you know you are innocent under Byelaw 18 if you were given permission to travel without a valid ticket?
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/railway-byelaws/railway-byelaws#travel-and-fares-1
TIL's second paragraph of its first letter omits that. We might think it's a misleading description of the offence, because it includes one exemption but not the relevant one. In the second letter, the second paragraph refers to a passenger's duty, while again omitting the exemption.


Secondly, I think this is a reasonable point to make:

response from TiL saying...when asked to pay the appropriate fare I was unable to do which I don’t understand because when I asked to pay the outstanding fee to the revenue officer, he refused to authorise this.

In TIL's second letter, I think it's reasonable to interpret the allegation "failed to pay the appropriate fare" in the fourth paragraph as meaning when you were with the inspector rather than earlier. That's because of paragraph 2 ("responsibility... declare...to on-train staff...pay the fare due") and because paragraph 4 begins "When asked to show..." then ends "This left the inspector no alternative...".


Thirdly, the title of this thread is "Letter requiring mitigating circumstances", which is in line with TIL's incomplete description of the purpose of its first letter. It is ludicrous to send a letter saying in effect, "you may have broken the law, and do you have anything to say in mitigation?". The part about "mitigation" assumes, or comes close to giving an impression of assuming, guilt.
In reality TIL staff should know perfectly well that some people receiving these letters are going to say, not that there is something mitigating their guilt, but that they are, or that there is something which implies they are, innocent. The part about "explanation" hints at this, but overall the TIL letter is liable to confuse - perhaps especially where the passenger also gets the wrong impression that permission from staff is not a defence.


Fourthly, while it is clearly unwise in ordinary circumstances for a staff member to allow an adult to board with a child ticket, that doesn't necessarily mean it didn't happen. If TIL want to claim that you didn't have permission, they might need to challenge, not just the idea that you were given verbal permission, but the idea that the staff member saw what the ticket was and then let you through. What can you remember about their appearance and voice, bearing in mind that memory can play tricks?

 

[WesternLancer]

I wonder if some confusion has been caused by TIL's letters.

Firstly, do you know you are innocent under Byelaw 18 if you were given permission to travel without a valid ticket?
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/railway-byelaws/railway-byelaws#travel-and-fares-1
TIL's second paragraph of its first letter omits that. We might think it's a misleading description of the offence, because it includes one exemption but not the relevant one. In the second letter, the second paragraph refers to a passenger's duty, while again omitting the exemption.


Secondly, I think this is a reasonable point to make:

In TIL's second letter, I think it's reasonable to interpret the allegation "failed to pay the appropriate fare" in the fourth paragraph as meaning when you were with the inspector rather than earlier. That's because of paragraph 2 ("responsibility... declare...to on-train staff...pay the fare due") and because paragraph 4 begins "When asked to show..." then ends "This left the inspector no alternative...".


Thirdly, the title of this thread is "Letter requiring mitigating circumstances", which is in line with TIL's incomplete description of the purpose of its first letter. It is ludicrous to send a letter saying in effect, "you may have broken the law, and do you have anything to say in mitigation?". The part about "mitigation" assumes, or comes close to giving an impression of assuming, guilt.
In reality TIL staff should know perfectly well that some people receiving these letters are going to say, not that there is something mitigating their guilt, but that they are, or that there is something which implies they are, innocent. The part about "explanation" hints at this, but overall the TIL letter is liable to confuse - perhaps especially where the passenger also gets the wrong impression that permission from staff is not a defence.


Fourthly, while it is clearly unwise in ordinary circumstances for a staff member to allow an adult to board with a child ticket, that doesn't necessarily mean it didn't happen. If TIL want to claim that you didn't have permission, they might need to challenge, not just the idea that you were given verbal permission, but the idea that the staff member saw what the ticket was and then let you through. What can you remember about their appearance and voice, bearing in mind that memory can play tricks?

I fear the problem with these kinds of arguments is that TIL would call the bluff of the OP and say they will argue about them in court - where unless the OP can afford legal representation they would be at a severe disadvantage against the railway company's lawyer in front of Magistrates with probably limited knowledge of the railway law and rules.

And then there is the question of whether any staff member really did allow an adult to board a train with a child ticket (which others have cast doubt on previously) - which in the unlikely ability of the OP to call them to the court will almost certainly result in them saying "I do not remember this situation" as to admit that they did it might well result in workplace criticism at the very least (after all, they are required to staff the barrier to ensure people actually have correct tickets, not ones they are not entitled to hold).

So the most realistic IMHO, strategy for the OP is to continue to ask for a settlement and accept they are going to have to pay some penalty to get that - otherwise they are going to have to pay a solicitor a fair bit, or risk going to court and being found guilty - which is an eventuality I strongly suspect they are seeking to avoid.

 

[Jason12]

So the most realistic IMHO, strategy for the OP is to continue to ask for a settlement and accept they are going to have to pay some penalty to get that - otherwise they are going to have to pay a solicitor a fair bit, or risk going to court and being found guilty - which is an eventuality I strongly suspect they are seeking to avoid.

The difficulty in getting an out of court settlement is that in their first letter of mitigation the OP advances arguments that a) they had been authorised by staff at the barrier to travel with the child ticket and, notwithstanding that, b) they ought to have been allowed to pay the correct fare when challenged by the revenue inspector. It shows the OP does not fully understand what they did wrong. They are also trying to argue away the other purchases of child fares, rather than admit the same game has been played on previous occasions.

Plenty of cases are suitable for an out of court settlement. This doesn't strike me as being anywhere close to being one.

 

[Wolfie]

I do personally think that might be a risk. I also fear you can not 100% gaurantee Royal Mail special delivery dates actually being delivered...

Your fear is eminently justified. I've had letters sent by that route to me which arrived up to a week late.

 

[Deafdoggie]

Your fear is eminently justified. I've had letters sent by that route to me which arrived up to a week late.

In all my years at Royal Mail I've never known (pandemic aside) Special Delivery to be over 24 hours late. Trust me, someone's head is on the line everytime Special Deliveries are delayed. Special Delivery trumps everything else, I've known other items be delayed so Special Deliveries can be on time. Of course, that applies to delivery attempt. If delivery was attempted but no one was there to receive it, that's not Royal Mails fault!

 

[WesternLancer]

The difficulty in getting an out of court settlement is that in their first letter of mitigation the OP advances arguments that a) they had been authorised by staff at the barrier to travel with the child ticket and, notwithstanding that, b) they ought to have been allowed to pay the correct fare when challenged by the revenue inspector. It shows the OP does not fully understand what they did wrong. They are also trying to argue away the other purchases of child fares, rather than admit the same game has been played on previous occasions.

Plenty of cases are suitable for an out of court settlement. This doesn't strike me as being anywhere close to being one.

I see your points. Perhaps to some extent it boils down to the desire of the railway company to prosecute in the maximum number of cases or to settle (and receive the settlement payment direct) out of court.