nedchester
Established Member
- Joined
- 28 May 2008
- Messages
- 2,093
THere is no easment to only require you to produce the ticket on Railway property. Many station entrances open onto the publich highway or into shopping malls.
The Legislation requires you to demonstrate that you have a valid ticket. The ticket remains the property of the Railway, and therefore throwing it away or destroying it actaully technically constitutes theft.
A common "defence" is for a fare evader to claim that they have left the ticket or lost it. In Law the requirement is to produce when so requested. It is for the passenger to prove they have paid for the journey NOT for the Railway to do so. A failure to produce has for many, many years been taken as initial "intent" to support a S5 and many successful Prosecutions have proceeded on that basis.
The passenger agrees when using the Railway to the requirement to produce a railway ticket when so asked.
In answer to your question about being asked subsequently, there is a history of people making claims a for injury after train accidents having been prosecuted for fraud after they have been challenged to produce a ticket subsequently and having been unable to do so.
You and I have debated this very subject some months back and yet again you still fail to accept what the Law allows for. You can retain that belief if you wish but it is not the case in reality.
As we have debated before there is the common sense approach that a ticket would be asked for in close vicinity to the station not a long way down the street. Technically though an Inspector could form the view that you had potentially evaded and required you to prove you had a ticket because fare evasion is a criminal offence not a civil offence, therefore it is only subject to the Statute of Limitations in terms of time not in space or distance. Was that to be the case then no arrests could ever take place following robberies, etc.
You should also consider the situation of shop theft, where a person could be apprehended some way from the shop or indeed well away from the shop. Again the offence is criminal and is not constrained by virtue of distance.
That said it is unusual for logistical reasons for a person to be asked for a ticket once they have gone some way away from the Railway property.
That does not allow the identification of fare evaders. The passenger can go to the booking office and pay !
A lot of use of the word 'technically'. I would imagine that everyone is 'technically' guilty of theft as they have thrown their tickets away. In fact I have only done this this afternoon!
Whilst I understand your view about catching people for offences away from railway property, shops etc it is for the BTP/Civil Police to arrest people for offences. I doubt very much that a ticket inspector has any more jurisdictional in the street than another member of the public.
I believe this is the reason as to why these 'after the ticket office' stings are done as people leave the station/in the station car park and not out on the road outside.