Southeastern prosecution

[Horizon22]

What is the outstanding amount? Can you post the letter with any personal details redacted / blacked out?

Out of court settlements are not guaranteed - although common - and the train company does not have to offer them.

 

[Joopeng]

It’s £452 and it’s like 10 sheets. Can I try call them and still ask if I can pay any money they need. I really don’t want a criminal conviction. I’ve learnt my lesson and I just wanna pay them back that I owe

Please help, does anyone know of any instance when people have called after receiving a court summons and still managed to come to an out of court settlement.

 

[WesternLancer]

It’s £452 and it’s like 10 sheets. Can I try call them and still ask if I can pay any money they need. I really don’t want a criminal conviction. I’ve learnt my lesson and I just wanna pay them back that I owe

Please help, does anyone know of any instance when people have called after receiving a court summons and still managed to come to an out of court settlement.

There are several of such cases inc with South Eastern on this forum where that has happened, so try to ring them and discuss it perhaps, but your messages are not sufficiently clear to be able to advise you best on what to do next - I think you need to anonymise the correspondence and upload it if you can so people can properly understand what you are saying.

I am sorry, but it is not even clear from your post what this request for £452 is - has it come from the court or South Eastern - if it is from Southeastern it is request for a payment before they take court action maybe - in which case ay it and you will not get taken to court. If it is from the court then it means, I would think, you have already been taken to court and have a criminal conviction and this is the fine - but I am speculating without the information that you have from them.

If you do not want to share it here and do not understand what it is it may be that it is best for you to go to your local Citizens Advice Bureau (google to see where it is) where someone will be able to help explain the paperwork for you.

Good luck as I would think there is a fair chance of resolving this - however, I think you said you had evaded the fare a number of times so it is not surprising that the sum has escalated to several hundred in my view.

 

[Joopeng]

The letter I received, most information parts. Please is there anyway I could still get an out of court settlement.

 

[WesternLancer]

The letter I received, most information parts. Please is there anyway I could still get an out of court settlement.

Thanks for that - so sum is in line with advice in post #12 from @AlterEgo of about £400.

Can I ask - did you receive any earlier letters from South Eastern or any agent on their behalf (eg TILtd) asking for your side of events and if so did you reply and apologise and request to settle to avoid court action?

If the case has not come to court yet I think you may be able to contact the railway company prosecutions department and offer to pay the sum they are asking as a settlement. If there is a phone number on any of the documents for them you could ring them and discuss that. If they accept the offer of the money ensure you get a receipt and a written confirmation that court action will be dropped in exchange for payment.

Southeastern allowed a poster on here earlier in the year who had been regularly short faring to do that. I recall she was profuse in her apologies to them, both in writing and over the phone as she was clearly very much regretting the error she had made. You will need to take that position in your dealings with them.

Good luck. Hope others can add to this advice if the paperwork you have helpfully posted prompts more advice.

 

[Joopeng]

Yes I wrote to them to explain my side of the story and I apologised and asked for an out of court settlement which I was hoping they would have accepted instead I got a court summons. Thank you, I’ll try call them tomorrow but if it doesn’t work please what else can I do. I’ve said the money and I really want to handle it outside court, I know I shouldn’t have done it in the first place but I just wanna put it right outside court

 

[WesternLancer]

Yes I wrote to them to explain my side of the story and I apologised and asked for an out of court settlement which I was hoping they would have accepted instead I got a court summons. Thank you, I’ll try call them tomorrow but if it doesn’t work please what else can I do. I’ve said the money and I really want to handle it outside court, I know I shouldn’t have done it in the first place but I just wanna put it right outside court

Yes, definitely ring them ASAP. I think what else would be

a) keep writing, apologising and asking for a settlement - we have seen cases on here with 3 or 4 times doing that before it is agreed
b) if that does not work go to court on the day early- seek out the prosecutor and offer to pay then and there before the case is started - this has worked for people - they then withdraw the case

other option for you would be to seek the help of a solicitor to achieve that outcome. Several cases of that on here, but you may need to be prepared to pay the solictors frim in region of £500 for their work on it - plus any settlement they negotiate of course (unless you have free legal help from eg a trade union or student union if you are a member of such orgs).

 

[Fawkes Cat]

It sounds as if you are doing everything you can to settle out of court, so keep on with that and it may well work.

But you need to know that the railway (edit) may not let you settle out of court: you may end up in court, and be convicted, and face a punishment.

That punishment will be a fine, on top of the figures that the railway has already told you about. But you will not go to prison; quite simply, that doesn't happen for fare dodging.

I see that the charge is under the Regulation of the Railways Act: that means that if convicted then for a year if anyone with a good reason (maybe someone offering you a job) asks you will have to tell them about the conviction. It will also show up on a DBS check, and for roles that need a lot of trust (things like personal care, or where you are handling other people's money) then you may have to mention it for longer than that.

This probably sounds awful, but from what we see here, many employers and so on are prepared to give a second chance, as long as going forward you're honest.

So it's quite likely that after paying your fine, mainly the conviction will be embarrassing. But that's nowhere near as bad as going to prison or not being able to get any job.

 

[duncombec]

I see that the the "catch" was on 17 September at Chatham. It may or may not affect any advice that forum members can give that this was around the time of a large scale revenue blockade (lasting about 6 weeks) where a number of people would have been, and indeed were, caught. (The blockade had certainly started the following week).

I'm wondering if may have an effect on the willingness of SouthEastern to settle out of court, and indeed on the wait time to have received the letter.

 

[WesternLancer]

I see that the the "catch" was on 17 September at Chatham. It may or may not affect any advice that forum members can give that this was around the time of a large scale revenue blockade (lasting about 6 weeks) where a number of people would have been, and indeed were, caught. (The blockade had certainly started the following week).

I'm wondering if may have an effect on the willingness of SouthEastern to settle out of court, and indeed on the wait time to have received the letter.

That may be a pertinent point. If it gets to that I still think it would be worth OP going to court and seeking out prosecutor and offering to settle 'on the day'. If a whole batch of cases from that blockade are tabled, I doubt many of the people would turn up at court so it may be that a prosecutor would be prepared to engage with someone who took the time to do that, as part of an attempt to co-operate with SE Trains. This is just my hunch, I have no inside knowledge.

 

[AlterEgo]

I see that the the "catch" was on 17 September at Chatham. It may or may not affect any advice that forum members can give that this was around the time of a large scale revenue blockade (lasting about 6 weeks) where a number of people would have been, and indeed were, caught. (The blockade had certainly started the following week).

I'm wondering if may have an effect on the willingness of SouthEastern to settle out of court, and indeed on the wait time to have received the letter.

Yes, good point. Large scale revenue blocks are often meant to generate Court cases which turn into PR for the companies involved to deter fare evasion. Tyne and Wear Metro has been doing this for a long time. Unfortunately for the OP, this is not a one-off offence but rather the latest in a string of dishonest instances of habitual and premeditated fare evasion. The chance of a settlement is therefore fairly low (but not zero).

I see that the the "catch" was on 17 September at Chatham. It may or may not affect any advice that forum members can give that this was around the time of a large scale revenue blockade (lasting about 6 weeks) where a number of people would have been, and indeed were, caught. (The blockade had certainly started the following week).

I'm wondering if may have an effect on the willingness of SouthEastern to settle out of court, and indeed on the wait time to have received the letter.

Yes, good point. Large scale revenue blocks are often meant to generate Court cases which turn into PR for the companies involved to deter fare evasion. Tyne and Wear Metro has been doing this for a long time. Unfortunately for the OP, this is not a one-off offence but rather the latest in a string of dishonest instances of habitual and premeditated fare evasion. The chance of a settlement is therefore fairly low (but not zero).

 

[Joopeng]

Thank you for all the information and the advice. Which section should I sign if I want to show up to court and try get out of court settlement on the day please?

 

[WesternLancer]

Thank you for all the information and the advice. Which section should I sign if I want to show up to court and try get out of court settlement on the day please?

Hopefully someone with more knowledge of court process will make a suggestion but also see this thread esp post 17 (in answer to post 16). Different circs to you but the question of how to plead is addressed by @Haywain

Taken to court because of lack of railcard

Hello, I hope someone can help me understand my situation. In November I travelled from new cross to Gatwick airport but didn’t realise that my railcard expired. I had bought a ticket with a 26-30 railcard discount. The discount was around £5. During the journey a ticket inspector asks for my...

www.railforums.co.uk

 

[Fawkes Cat]

Thank you for all the information and the advice. Which section should I sign if I want to show up to court and try get out of court settlement on the day please?

Hopefully someone with more knowledge of court process will make a suggestion

For the avoidance of doubt, I am not claiming any special knowledge of court procedures.

Having said which, my understanding is that you do not dispute the facts so you are prepared to plead guilty. But you do want an opportunity to talk to someone from the prosecution side on the day of the hearing.

If I am right on all of that, then I think you want to sign box 2 on the first page - the one that says 'I accept the evidence and will attend Court on the date shown on the summons'. On the day, you will need to go to court early: ask the court staff if they can point you to whoever is prosecuting the case, and try to discussing with them whether they are prepared to settle out of court.

I'm not sure when the hearing is due to be, but if there is time, it cannot do any harm to get in touch with the prosecutors beforehand to see if they will settle out of court: I see that their address is given on the second picture you sent us at 2203 yesterday (13 January) so you can write to them.