Fawkes Cat
Established Member
- Joined
- 8 May 2017
- Messages
- 3,037
Back in October 2023 I [committed a travel irregularity which was detected by WMT].
Today I received an email about it stating
We have recently been handed a file relating to an incident on 24/10/2023 when approached by staff carrying out their revenue duties, you were asked to show your valid ticket you offered a ticket with a railcard attached and were unable to present your railcard, therefore you would not have been eligible for the discounted rate.
Further investigations into this matter have been carried out, including a review of the ticket records. It would appear, at this stage, that this may be a case of fraud. West Midlands Trains take travel fraud extremely seriously and is committed to prosecuting all cases of fare evasion to the full extent of the law. Travelling on the railway with the intent to avoid paying the full fare is an offence under the Regulation of Railways Act 1889. Such an offence carries a maximum fine of £1,000 and/or three months’ imprisonment and, in either case, a criminal record. It must also be considered whether this matter amounts to a much more serious offence under the Fraud Act 2006.
At this stage we would be grateful if you would provide any evidence to support the claim that none of the above legislation has been contravened to prevent further action being contemplated. We look forward to hearing from you.
I've started a new thread as we've seen two or three of these today.
It seems notable to me that there's no reference to WMT having checked the passenger's past tickets with Trainline etc. And all the original reports are out of time for summary prosecution.
I know I apply a rather different definition of 'fishing' from some other users (to me, it wouldn't be fishing if there was a history of dubious ticket purchases; that's enough to make asking whether those dubious purchases were used for dubious travel a reasonable question). But when the only evidence that WMT have is of one dubious journey, and that turns out to be out of time for prosecution, then to me that makes the questions about other possible occurrences into a fishing expedition.
So to be practical, what advice should we be giving (always accepting that each case may have its own special features)? My feeling is that we should be checking whether there is a history of fare dodging - and if not, advising to either not reply, or giving WMT a polite brush-off.