There are legal controls on the railway - one of them happens to be that you must be in possession of a valid ticket when travelling on ATW trains. This passenger didnt possess such a ticket so was penalised then didnt turn up to court.
its pretty much black and white no matter how you try to spin it.
It's not black and white by any means, ATW operate many stations with no staff or ticket facilities at all. Having never been on an ATW train not on a North Wales route I've never seen an ATW train where you couldn't buy tickets on-board. How am I supposed to know that this isn't always the case?