DaveNewcastle
Established Member
Precedent may and will be used in the higher Courts, but in the Magistrates Court it is common to concentrate on statute and testimony. It is less common for Claimants in the Mags Court to cite 'authorities', and even if they do, the Mags can generally be persuaded to deviate from precedent, justifying that deviation if a Precedent is cited, by reference to some detail specific to the alledged incident.I'm sorry but Judicial Precedent will come into play here. There have been umpteen successful prosecutions for intent to avoid the fare where people have walked past a ticket office at their destination. I'd imagine it will be a simple formality if it reaches Court.
This is a matter in which the expertise of a lawyer, barrister or other advocate may greatly assist the Defendant's prospects of avoiding prosecution - it will depend on the details of the incident as they are presented and argued in the Court.
However, if the aggreived Claimant were unsuccessful and took the matter to Appeal (which is unlikely in the case of a single rail journey), then we should expect the higher court to have reference both to Precedent and to the detail which had been argued in the Mags Court. They would then arrive at a decision which, in some cases, may even result in a new Precedent, referring to the specifics of the incident.