Nexus Metro prosecution

[island]

My daughter has asked this question -
Which would be best - Plead guilty and be fined by the courts or settle out of court with Nexus, as they have indicated on the letter, by phoning them up?

Neither. Phone the court and ask if the information has been laid out of time, I think.
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In the event that she decides to make a not guilty plea you may wish to be aware that there is an automatic 1/3 discount for any fine if te not guilty plea is made at the earliest opportunity.

That is not correct. There is no discount arising from a not guilty plea.

 

[michael769]

That is not correct. There is no discount arising from a not guilty plea.

Indeed you are right I meant of course to say a guilty plea. I guess it is getting to late for me.

 

[34D]

My daughter has asked this question -
Which would be best - Plead guilty and be fined by the courts or settle out of court with Nexus, as they have indicated on the letter, by phoning them up?

Please re-read the whole thread. Myself and others are suggesting:

Action 1 - on monday, call the magistrates court and establish whether they are in time or not

Action 2 - post the outcome of that on here.

If its out of time, we'll help suggest a letter (to send nexus, copied to the court) to advise them of this

If it is in time, we will probably ask for more details of the events of 18th Jan (example, where boarded, times, etc) and potentially one of our senior forum members can give their opinion as to the next stage. Alternatively, our opinion may be to take the advice of a solicitor or citizens advice (etc).

Please allow me to EMPHASISE:- any telephone or written contact to Nexus needs to be carefully considered. It is EASY to say the wrong thing, and to potentially incriminate onesself.

The question you've asked (quoted above) - I don't believe anyone can attempt an answer to this without knowing more information.

 

[Mojo]

Their Conditions of Carriage state they have their own "The Tyne & Wear Metro Byelaws," rather than using the Railway Byelaws, but I cannot find this anywhere online.

I've found this, but it requires a login: https://www.pnld.co.uk/docportal/content/@1297.htm

 

[bluenoxid]

Their Conditions of Carriage state they have their own "The Tyne & Wear Metro Byelaws," rather than using the Railway Byelaws, but I cannot find this anywhere online.

I've found this, but it requires a login: https://www.pnld.co.uk/docportal/content/@1297.htm

http://www.nexusdiscussion.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=5743

Hope this helps but sadly it does not link to the document.

 

[Mojo]

I've asked them for an electronic copy of the Byelaws. It seems a bit strange in this day and age that they have not uploaded a copy to their website.

 

[Kryten2340]

Do they use national rail bylaws between Pelaw and Sunderland? If so it would be interesting to know if the alleged incident occurred on this section of the line.

 

[pendlewitch666]

Hello, hope this helps .

Letter from Nexus - Prosecutions Dept, dated 30 August 2012
Details that enclosed is a summons to appear in court
.
Summons - Dated 19 July 2012
That my daughter on the 18 January 2012 failed to pay for the fare for the journey and then when requested did give a false name + address, contrary to Section 5(4)(c) of the Tyne & Wear Passenger Transport Act 1979 at South Gosforth, Newcastle upon Tyne.

Notice to Defendant - Proof of Written Notice
Details of the Offence - False Details

My daughter had bought a ticket, but it was a childs ticket as she did not have enough money on her to get the full adult ticket. When she was pulled up by the inspector she just panicked, no excuse but she was just 17 at the time and when he wrote out a penalty ticket with £20 written on it.then not given it, he should have told her it was going to court and to expect a summons through the post.
As it was the letter came on Saturday gone and it was a complete surprise as we had no idea that it was going to court.
Thank you for all your posts so far, any advice is appreciated.

 

[John @ home]

I cannot be certain that the following version is up to date.

Tyne & Wear Passenger Transport Act 1979

Avoidance of fare

5. ... (4) If any person without reasonable excuse ...
(c) having failed to pay the fare for the journey he is making or, as the case may be, the additional fare for the additional distance of the journey he is making and, having been requested to give to an authorised person his name and address, fails to do so or gives a false name and address;
he shall be guilty in any such case of an offence and liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding £500.

https://www.ircas.co.uk/docs/Tyne_Wear_Transport_Act_1979.pdf

This wording is available only on the website of IRCAS, Independent Revenue Collection and Support, an agency which collects penalty fares and fares where an Unpaid Fares Notice has been issued. This makes me wonder whether this section of the Act has been consolidated into a later Act.

 

[michael769]

If it had been consolidated they would have referred to the new act in the summons (trying to lay charges on repealed legislation is a fast track to a dismissal) so that I'll be up to date.

I suspect given the terms of S.5 that it is not recordable, but I'll need to do some digging to confirm.

For the OP this is a strict liability offence so given your daughter has admitted to providing false details the is no viable defence that I can see if it is not out of time.
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OK as the act does not provide for a possible prison sentence and it does not appear on the statutory lists of Recordable Offences I'm pretty confident it is not recordable.

It is fortunate for the OPs daughter that the Act specifically excludes the RoR S.5 equivalent as the penalties under the RoR for providing false details are more severe than available here.

 

[John @ home]

If it had been consolidated they would have referred to the new act in the summons

If it had been consolidated they should have referred to the new act in the summons.

 

[island]

My daughter had bought a ticket, but it was a childs ticket as she did not have enough money on her to get the full adult ticket. When she was pulled up by the inspector she just panicked, no excuse but she was just 17 at the time and when he wrote out a penalty ticket with £20 written on it.then not given it, he should have told her it was going to court and to expect a summons through the post.
As it was the letter came on Saturday gone and it was a complete surprise as we had no idea that it was going to court.
Thank you for all your posts so far, any advice is appreciated.

That process is pretty standard; they would issue a £20 penalty fare if your daughter had not chosen to lie about her details.

I think the only way of getting out of this without either a hefty cost, a criminal record, or both, is to plead that the information was laid a day late.

 

[Ferret]

Do they use national rail bylaws between Pelaw and Sunderland? If so it would be interesting to know if the alleged incident occurred on this section of the line.

Why would that be interesting? What difference does it make?!

 

[34D]

is to plead that the information was laid a day late.

Two days, surely?

 

[bluenoxid]

Why would that be interesting? What difference does it make?!

None. The section of the network operates on Network Rail infrastructure, which is the reason he is trying to be witty/smart/interesting.

Legislation means that any attempt to wiggle that defence is a waste of effort using the brain, fingers to tap it in and sending it to the interweb.

Application of existing enactments

38.—(1) Any enactment by which any part of any railway or former railway situated within the limits of deviation or the further limits was authorised shall have effect subject to the provisions of this Order.

(2) The relevant enactments shall apply to the Sunderland extension and to railway premises, including stations, station approaches, escalators and moving pavements, comprised in or provided in connection with the Sunderland extension, and to trains or Metro vehicles of the undertaker on the Sunderland extension, as they apply to the rapid transit railway or Metro authorised by the Tyneside Metropolitan Railway Act 1973(1) and to railway premises, including stations, station approaches, escalators and moving pavements, comprised in or provided in connection with the rapid transit railway, and to trains or Metro vehicles on the rapid transit railway.

(3) In paragraph (2) above and paragraph (6) below “the relevant enactments” are—

Tyneside Metropolitan Railway Act 1973—
section 58 (Byelaws relating to rapid transit railway);
Tyne and Wear Passenger Transport Act 1979(2)—
section 5 (Avoidance of fares);
Byelaws relating to Metro and bus premises made by the Tyne and Wear Passenger Transport Executive on 4th July 1980.
(4) In its application to the Sunderland extension section 5 of the Tyne and Wear Passenger Transport Act 1979 shall have effect as though for the reference in subsection (3) to a fine not exceeding £200 and for the reference in subsection (4) to a fine of £500 there were substituted references to a fine on level 3 of the standard scale.

(5) In the event of conflict, in relation to a station of which the undertaker is not the operator, between—

(a)a byelaw applied, or made under a power applied, by paragraph (2) above; and

(b)any other byelaw made or enforceable by the operator of the station;

that other byelaw shall prevail.

(6) In relation to the existing railway between Newcastle and Hartlepool the relevant enactments shall apply only to trains or Metro vehicles of the undertaker and to stations served by such trains or vehicles.

(7) For the purpose of paragraph (5) above, “operator” has the meaning given by section 6(2) of the 1993 Act.

However, Sunderland is under National Rail rules for other operations.

 

[Mojo]

Why would that be interesting? What difference does it make?!

If it did apply, not relevant in this case, I think it could be quite a big thing, given the potential penalties and prohibited activities may be different. But unfortunately we don't know that at this time because for some unknown reason they have decided not to publish their Byelaws on their website.

The pdf linked to by John @ home (which may or may not be out of date) lists maximum fines for breaching some byelaws as £200 or £500, versus a penalty fare or £1,000 for breaching the railway byelaws.

Photography (without permission) is also prohibited on Tyne/Wear Metro and their conditions of carriage states that you can be prosecuted under the byelaws for non-compliance. To my knowledge no such prohibition exists on the national rail network.

 

[Stigy]

Interesting that they're not prosecuting for the fare evasion too...As I see it they use their own legislation rather than that of National Rail, but I guess it's fundamentally the same. Even the sections of the act are pretty similar to that of the national rail network.
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To my knowledge no such prohibition exists on the national rail network.

That's correct, contrary to what a lot of people think. Unless of course there's reasons why it might be deemed as suspicious, in which case, it's a Police matter anyway if you seriously see something as that suspect.

 

[tony_mac]

Neither. Phone the court and ask if the information has been laid out of time, I think.

I think it would be better to ask for the date that the information was laid, you don't want to rely on somebody else's interpretation of 'out of time'.

There is some interesting stuff here, http://www.stubblegal.co.uk/scripts/1Cri01.htm. Roughly, if the information arrived at the magistrates court on time (e.g. was faxed or entered into the computer), but was not processed and dated until the next day, then it would still be considered to be in time.

If it was out of time, then you should have a get out of jail free card (not literally )

If convicted the likely fine is usually somewhere in the lowish hundreds, but this may be slightly different under metro byelaws as it seems the maximum is lower.

Although it is not a recordable offence, I have seen some documentation that suggests it may appear on an enhanced CRB disclosure. It would also (in theory, at least) need to be declared when applying for visas / visa waivers etc.

Hence, where possible, settling out of court is generally better than being convicted!

 

[Stigy]

It's not uncommon for cases to be laid at just under 6-months, and not get a court hearing for another 3-months after it!

 

[pendlewitch666]

Hello
Just to give you an update and to thank everyone for their help.
I rang Nexus, to arrange paying this fine and avoiding court. The lady was quite helpful, all I have to pay is £90, which is what the court fee would have been. I thought it would have been higher and was quite relieved when she said that amount, so it is now sorted.
Thank you to everyone who posted advice to me.

 

[Ferret]

Hello
Just to give you an update and to thank everyone for their help.
I rang Nexus, to arrange paying this fine and avoiding court. The lady was quite helpful, all I have to pay is £90, which is what the court fee would have been. I thought it would have been higher and was quite relieved when she said that amount, so it is now sorted.
Thank you to everyone who posted advice to me.

Well, I'm glad it has been sorted. I expect you'll make your daughter aware that it won't be such a small amount if there were to be a 'next time'.

 

[benk1342]

But the legal system does have a number of time limits . . . .

Yes, and the general legal term for a statute that sets a time limit by which an action must be commenced is "statute of limitations", here as in the US. See Osborn's Concise Law Dictionary.