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What is the current penalty for trespassers, and what should it be?

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alexl92

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Apologies if this has been discussed before.

In light of the stupid traspassing incidents today during FS's run, can anyone enlighten me on the current penalties generally given to trespassers when caught?

And what do forum members believe that the penalty should be? In my opinion it should be a formal warning and instant £500-£1000 fine, as well as having any photos taken in an illegal position wiped from their equipment.
 
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yorkie

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See Penalty for trespassing on the railway for some answers, e.g.
The £1,000 is the maximum penalty upon conviction (realistically it would never be that much though). BTP and Accredited Officers under RSAS can issue PNDs of £60 for trespass on a railway. Bear in mind that Trespass in this respect relates to trackside, and not civil trespass which is completely different. Line side trespass is set out in the British Transport Commission Act 1949. Days gone past we used to be able to deal with level crossing mis- use by pedestrians as trespass, be it by way of PND or reporting the offence. Unfortunately though, the law commission has concluded that level crossing misuse isn't trespass, therefore the closest Byelaw to this us Byelaw 12, which can be used, although PNDs can't anymore.
 

J4mes

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Should be the total cost of all of the direct delays and knock-on delays attributed to their trespass, plus Network Rail court costs IMO.
 

Up_Tilt_390

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Sorry if this is slightly off topic, but from what I've heard, and correct me if I am wrong, but in somewhere like France or the United States, they would just allow them to risk getting ran over if they strayed onto the track, because aside from the TGV lines in France, there is almost no fences protecting either country's railway because at the end of the day, it's the trespassers own fault they're there, and they're at their own risk.

It makes me think, should this kind of attitude be more applied to the UK to save delays and maybe charge the perpetrators a fine later should they get off the track and into a safe zone? It might seem like something disgruntled passengers would say yes to, but there's obviously threats of lawsuits to Network Rail and the train companies (even though in fairness nobody should be stupid enough to trespass on the railways) as well as the mentally damaged drivers that may be the result of an accident of a trespasser getting hit. What do you all think?
 

HMS Ark Royal

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What could be done is for all the big tours, send an engine five to ten minutes ahead with a coach full of BTP officers to catch the trespassers in the act and haul them away fairly quickly
 

Peter Mugridge

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What could be done is for all the big tours, send an engine five to ten minutes ahead with a coach full of BTP officers to catch the trespassers in the act and haul them away fairly quickly

They'd soon learn to wait for the Q train to pass, though, then scramble all over the place. Planting a few plain clothes officers amongst crowds at known problem hotspots would probably be more effective?
 

broadgage

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I see no need for any change in the law, though the existing law could perhaps be enforced a bit more effectively at times and places where significant trespass incidents could be expected.

It is IMHO unhelpful to publish pictures of large scale trespass since this might encourage others in the future.

OTOH, most trespass (not all I know !) is not in fact that dangerous, and may even be safe. The boundary fence normally denotes the boundary between network rail land and other peoples land. This varies a great deal, often according to how wide a strip of land was purchased by the original railway company 100 years ago or more.
In some places the fence is a long way from the track, and being inside the fence though still trespassing is not in itself dangerous.
Station platforms are generally considered to be safe if one remains behind the yellow line, yet a distance from the trains of ten times as much is dangerous elsewhere ?

As has been posted above, this seems to be a UK thing, with many lines in other countries not even fenced.
 

STEVIEBOY1

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Apologies if this has been discussed before.

In light of the stupid traspassing incidents today during FS's run, can anyone enlighten me on the current penalties generally given to trespassers when caught?

And what do forum members believe that the penalty should be? In my opinion it should be a formal warning and instant £500-£1000 fine, as well as having any photos taken in an illegal position wiped from their equipment.

Yes that would be a good starting point and if caught again, the above plus jail time?
 

Phil.

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Should be the total cost of all of the direct delays and knock-on delays attributed to their trespass, plus Network Rail court costs IMO.

I'm a trainspotting anorak who earns £7.50 per hour for a part-time 25 hours a week job with a local company. How do you propose extracting what could be £5,000 out of me under your proposal?
Think before you jerk those knees.

P.S. I'm not actually any of the above.
 

furnessvale

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I'm a trainspotting anorak who earns £7.50 per hour for a part-time 25 hours a week job with a local company. How do you propose extracting what could be £5,000 out of me under your proposal?
Think before you jerk those knees.

P.S. I'm not actually any of the above.

Sounds like a LOT of overtime would need to be worked!
 

yorkie

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I'm a trainspotting anorak who earns £7.50 per hour for a part-time 25 hours a week job with a local company. How do you propose extracting what could be £5,000 out of me under your proposal?
Think before you jerk those knees.

P.S. I'm not actually any of the above.
I believe courts would give you a long time to pay it, in minuscule payments.
 

Southwest

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I'm a trainspotting anorak who earns £7.50 per hour for a part-time 25 hours a week job with a local company. How do you propose extracting what could be £5,000 out of me under your proposal?
Think before you jerk those knees.

P.S. I'm not actually any of the above.

I would make sure all your 'luxury' goods like TV's Computers, cameras etc were confiscated. Probably wouldn't amount to 5 grand but it would show that the law isn't a toothless tiger.
 

TDK

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What could be done is for all the big tours, send an engine five to ten minutes ahead with a coach full of BTP officers to catch the trespassers in the act and haul them away fairly quickly

And who would pay for it? Why should this have or even be suggested as the trespassers should never be there in the first place. Prevention is better than cure, just stop all railway related events that cause the trespass, job done!
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---
I would make sure all your 'luxury' goods like TV's Computers, cameras etc were confiscated. Probably wouldn't amount to 5 grand but it would show that the law isn't a toothless tiger.

Just confiscate the camera, note book, binoculars and permission to travel. Job done! All this trespass has caused a lot of damage to your hobby and to be fair some of you must notice some faces, grass them up with their details to the BTP, I certainly would if it was going affect my hobby. This incident has also cost NR a lot of money in fines, if NR do a cost analysis they may just feel that rail tours are just not worth the cost.
 

lincolnshire

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And who would pay for it? Why should this have or even be suggested as the trespassers should never be there in the first place. Prevention is better than cure, just stop all railway related events that cause the trespass, job done!
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---


Just confiscate the camera, note book, binoculars and permission to travel. Job done! All this trespass has caused a lot of damage to your hobby and to be fair some of you must notice some faces, grass them up with their details to the BTP, I certainly would if it was going affect my hobby. This incident has also cost NR a lot of money in fines, if NR do a cost analysis they may just feel that rail tours are just not worth the cost.

The last sentence above hits the nail on the head, that rail tours are just not worth the cost of upsetting the regular running of the railway and the trespass incident yesterday could be the start of the end of them. All we need next is a hot summer and line side fires from steam engines and a ban on them and also the fact that the age of the rolling stock etc they use. Someone will then be saying I think its about time all rail tours using either steam and stock older than a set age should be banned or only run on set lines ( in other words no more mainline running ).
It does nothing for Network Rails image as there might be a hidden agenda to rid the system of them, we will just after to wait and see what happens.
 

Darandio

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Prevention is the best cure.

Strategically placed snipers, that should sort it.
 

Spamcan81

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Make them sit and read the countless pages of wibble and froth on the subject.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---
And who would pay for it? Why should this have or even be suggested as the trespassers should never be there in the first place. Prevention is better than cure, just stop all railway related events that cause the trespass, job done!
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---


Just confiscate the camera, note book, binoculars and permission to travel. Job done! All this trespass has caused a lot of damage to your hobby and to be fair some of you must notice some faces, grass them up with their details to the BTP, I certainly would if it was going affect my hobby. This incident has also cost NR a lot of money in fines, if NR do a cost analysis they may just feel that rail tours are just not worth the cost.

So that would be stop all trains of any kind running as trespass happens every day of the year.
 

bramling

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Apologies if this has been discussed before.

In light of the stupid traspassing incidents today during FS's run, can anyone enlighten me on the current penalties generally given to trespassers when caught?

And what do forum members believe that the penalty should be? In my opinion it should be a formal warning and instant £500-£1000 fine, as well as having any photos taken in an illegal position wiped from their equipment.

I tend to be the type who will turn a 'blind eye' to the occasional person who isn't quite where they should be providing they're safe and discreet, however Thursday was pretty shocking. Travelling in to King's Cross I saw quite a few people well inside the railway fencing, this on a 125 mph main line, right in the middle of the morning peak, and blatently doing it in front of loads of other people too.

This does seem to be a steam thing, with the offenders tending to be grey-haired men. I'm sure people will be able to provide examples, however it doesn't seem to happen nearly so much with younger enthusiasts. In fact I wonder how many of the offenders were really serious enthusiasts - I find the most problematic people can often be the more casual ones, certainly serious enthusiasts tend to be staff themselves and have more awareness of the issues, as well as more to lose if caught, both of which are a pretty big deterrant.

As for penalties, the potential penalty is already pretty high. If that's not already a deterrant then nothing really will be. Which is why there's not much that can realistically be done about the issue. It tends to be in remote areas so by the time BTP arrive they've probably gone. Likewise it's not a fantastically productive use of BTP resources, as whilst they're driving round looking for a trespasser there could be staff needing assistance which is arguably more important. Rural areas are never going to get the same expenditure on fencing as urban areas, so it's not going to be prevented that way. And large-scale reporting by drivers realistically only causes delays, by the time the cautioned train goes through they're probably gone. Not ideal, but reality.
 
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alexl92

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Anyone know what happened to the offenders FS was stopped for the other day? Arrested or anything?
 

Mojo

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What could be done is for all the big tours, send an engine five to ten minutes ahead with a coach full of BTP officers to catch the trespassers in the act and haul them away fairly quickly
Is this really the best use of limited BTP resources? I can't imagine stopping a train on the main line would be particularly good either.
 

CheesyChips

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If we applied all the ideas in this thread to the next bulk trespassing incident we're going to see a train full of BTP officers rock up in full riot clobber erasing memory cards, taking equipment off people before handcuffing and issuing £5k fines to those who haven't yet been shot in the face by a sniper.

...and then the Flying Scotsman comes past with some very confused passengers.
 

nanstallon

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The British are so hysterical about trespass. Even going onto the ramp at a station can provoke the wrath of station staff. Perhaps the British are a nation of over-regulated sheep and over-regulating jobsworths. Of course, it isn't helped by judges who happily award compensation to idiots who should have known better.

The end result is that adults get treated as seven year old kids. I love travelling abroad, just to escape from the elfansafety nursery.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---
I would make sure all your 'luxury' goods like TV's Computers, cameras etc were confiscated. Probably wouldn't amount to 5 grand but it would show that the law isn't a toothless tiger.

Let's just shoot them. Or if they say sorry, spare their lives and just deport them to North Korea. That really isn't a good place to trespass onto the tracks!
 
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