Thameslink Intent to Prosecute - Short Fairing

[jamesluka]

Hello everyone,

In January, I was stopped at the gates of my destination station and had my ticket inspected. I had purchased a short ticket, which the officer observed I had not scanned in at my stated departure station. As a result, I have received an intention to prosecute letter.

Unfortunately, this has been a regrettable action I had been doing once or twice a week over a 6 month period. I have gone through my full journey history and calculated that I completed this offence roughly 30 times.

I have gone through many resources online and through this forum and I understand the typical process and outcomes of cases like mine. My number one priority is too reach an out of court settlement and avoid prosecution. As a result, I would like to respond to Thameslink honestly, show my genuine regret and make it clear I will not be repeating this ever again. I have been setting money aside since January in expectation this would happen and I am prepared to cover the costs of the undertaken journeys, additional admin fees and potentially solicitor fees.

I have a few specific questions.

1. Is now a good time to engage a solicitor? Should I first reach out to Thameslink myself and await their response, or should I go straight to a solicitor as this stage. I'm happy to pay the solicitors fees if it would be beneficial to my case, but of course if this is not necessary, it would help to avoid additional costs.
2. Should I provide a full list of all journeys where I committed this offence, along with my own estimation of fees owed or should I give a more vague response, admitting to wrongdoing but leaving the calculations to Thameslink? Of course, I have only been caught for a single offence, but I have no doubt an inspection into my history would reveal this was a regular pattern.
3. Since receiving my witness statement in January, I have since moved address. Luckily, I still have friends at my previous address who can inform me if I receive communications. Would it be possible to change my correspondence address to my new address in my response?

If anyone can provide any insight, it would be greatly appreciated. I'm aware what I've done is wrong and I would just like to settle this as quickly as possible and avoid prosecution.

 

[llands330]

Hi James,

Welcome to the community. Please try not to worry so much as GTR almost always prefer to settle out of court.

I know someone who was in exact same position and they received a fine below £100.00 as they showed their apologies and promise to not do it again.

First off, did you tell them that you’ve been doing this for 6 months? If they are only writing to prosecute on this one occasion, I would advise keeping the letter vague and letting them know of your regrets and how you have learnt and will not do this again.

Please feel free to share a draft letter here and people will advise.

 

[Titfield]

Wait for them to write to you. It is not in your interest to initiate contact with them. This is for three reasons: firstly they may “forget” about you, secondly they may run out of time to prosecute you, finally your fessing up to all your wrong doing will encourage them to look at all your wrong doing whereas they may only have been looking at the wrong doing when you were stopped. There is no need for you to approach a solicitor at this stage. Whilst it is understandable that you wish to get the matters resolved patience can have its own reward.

 

[JordR]

Welcome!

Is now a good time to engage a solicitor? Should I first reach out to Thameslink myself and await their response, or should I go straight to a solicitor as this stage. I'm happy to pay the solicitors fees if it would be beneficial to my case, but of course if this is not necessary, it would help to avoid additional costs.

Let Thameslink write to you first, as suggested above. I also wouldn't consider instructing a solicitor yet. If you engage with Thameslink politely and apologise they are very likely to settle with you out of court. A solicitor will not be able to reduce the amount of this settlement and will likely charge you high hundreds of pounds. The settlement requested will be the full price anytime single for each journey made plus an admin fee of around £150 to £200.

Should I provide a full list of all journeys where I committed this offence, along with my own estimation of fees owed or should I give a more vague response, admitting to wrongdoing but leaving the calculations to Thameslink? Of course, I have only been caught for a single offence, but I have no doubt an inspection into my history would reveal this was a regular pattern.

Don't provide anything proactively, wait to see what they have to say.

Since receiving my witness statement in January, I have since moved address. Luckily, I still have friends at my previous address who can inform me if I receive communications. Would it be possible to change my correspondence address to my new address in my response?

Yes.

 

[Hadders]

Welcome to the forum!

We see lots of cases involving GTR on here and they normally settle cases out of court as long as you co-operate with them, and haven't come to their attention before. Expect a settlement to cost of value of all the fares avoided at the full Anytime rate with no credit given for the invalid tickets you did purchase plus an adon fee, typically £150.

To answer your specific questions:

Is now a good time to engage a solicitor? Should I first reach out to Thameslink myself and await their response, or should I go straight to a solicitor as this stage. I'm happy to pay the solicitors fees if it would be beneficial to my case, but of course if this is not necessary, it would help to avoid additional costs.

From what you've said the case is straightforward and I don't see a need to involve a solicitor at this stage. A look through this section of the forum will reveal that GTR almost always settle. Solicitors specialising in rail fare evasion don't come cheap (I doubt you'll get any change from £1k) so I would only use one if you get an unfavourable reply to your reply to GTR.

Should I provide a full list of all journeys where I committed this offence, along with my own estimation of fees owed or should I give a more vague response, admitting to wrongdoing but leaving the calculations to Thameslink? Of course, I have only been caught for a single offence, but I have no doubt an inspection into my history would reveal this was a regular pattern.

Don't do anything yet. Wait for GTR to contact you. Thsi is because you don't know what GTR are going to say in their letter and you don't need to incriminate yourself.

Since receiving my witness statement in January, I have since moved address. Luckily, I still have friends at my previous address who can inform me if I receive communications. Would it be possible to change my correspondence address to my new address in my response?

I would have expected a letter to have arrived by now. It might be worth emailing GTR at [email protected] and tell them your updated address and have yet to receive any contact regardsing your case. Make sure you quote the case reference number from the paperwork you were given by the inspector. DOn't mention anything else in the letter, simply say you are writing about case reference number xxxx as you haven't received a a letter from them and advise them of your new contact address.

When the letter does come, post a redacted copy of it in this thread, along with your draft reply and forum members will proof read it for you.

 

[MotCO]

The OP in his opening post said that he has now received an intention to prosecute letter, so I assume he needs advice as to how to reply.

@Hadders gives useful advice if you look out one of his previous posts. In essence, you need to apologise for your mistake , and reassure them that you have learnt your lesson and will not reoffend. You need to actively engage with them, being suitably contrite, and don't waffle.

If you want to draft your reply and post on here, readers will offer advice and suggestions.

 

[jamesluka]

Thank you very much everyone for your welcome and advice, it's very helpful and much appreciated. Of course, this is a stressful situation for me, so all your support means a lot.

To clarify - yes I have already received my intention to prosecute letter, it focuses on the single journey where I was caught with an invalid ticket.

Yesterday, I engaged a solicitor for an initial consultation on my situation. They advised me that they could guarantee an out of court settlement, the process being that I provide the solicitor with a list of all journeys that I short ticketed. From here, the solicitor would liaise with GTR directly, who would then come back with a settlement package and close my case upon payment. The solicitor would handle the communications and I would not need to write a written response the prosecution letter myself. Of course, this would come at a large cost, I estimate that I would end up paying roughly £2k including my settlement and solicitor fees.

I currently have only paid a small fee for the initial consultation and I now have the decision whether to proceed with the solicitor at a large cost or follow the advice of your responses and potentially save a large amount of money on legal fees and potentially receive a much smaller settlement.

I'll be honest, it's a difficult predicament. I fear if I write to GTR, apologise for the single offence, admit to shorting the journey and settle, they will look into me further and pursue me later down the line. I would hate to receive another letter in 6 months and have to go through this stressful process again. Because of this, part of me wants to go through the solicitor route, to reduce any anxiety and allow me to move forward with complete clarity that this is behind me. However, of course, I would not have been shorting journeys in the first place if saving money was not a priority for me!

 

[30907]

I would hate to receive another letter in 6 months and have to go through this stressful process again.

This is an unlikely scenario: a train company cannot prosecute you without evidence that you actually misused tickets, and they would be out of time anyway. They could possibly go down the civil claim route, but so far this seems a rare occurrence.

What is far more likely is that they will respond to your letter asking if they will consider a settlement with a spreadsheet of suspect fares (I can't offhand recall if GTR do this, but other companies do).

You could, if you wish, tell GTR that you have offended more than once and have your spreadsheet ready to compare with theirs, instead of paying a solicitor to do that - it would be interesting to know whether they achieve better results.

 

[llands330]

Thank you very much everyone for your welcome and advice, it's very helpful and much appreciated. Of course, this is a stressful situation for me, so all your support means a lot.

To clarify - yes I have already received my intention to prosecute letter, it focuses on the single journey where I was caught with an invalid ticket.

Yesterday, I engaged a solicitor for an initial consultation on my situation. They advised me that they could guarantee an out of court settlement, the process being that I provide the solicitor with a list of all journeys that I short ticketed. From here, the solicitor would liaise with GTR directly, who would then come back with a settlement package and close my case upon payment. The solicitor would handle the communications and I would not need to write a written response the prosecution letter myself. Of course, this would come at a large cost, I estimate that I would end up paying roughly £2k including my settlement and solicitor fees.

I currently have only paid a small fee for the initial consultation and I now have the decision whether to proceed with the solicitor at a large cost or follow the advice of your responses and potentially save a large amount of money on legal fees and potentially receive a much smaller settlement.

I'll be honest, it's a difficult predicament. I fear if I write to GTR, apologise for the single offence, admit to shorting the journey and settle, they will look into me further and pursue me later down the line. I would hate to receive another letter in 6 months and have to go through this stressful process again. Because of this, part of me wants to go through the solicitor route, to reduce any anxiety and allow me to move forward with complete clarity that this is behind me. However, of course, I would not have been shorting journeys in the first place if saving money was not a priority for me!

Thanks for sharing all of this, completely understandable that you’re feeling the weight of it.

Just to add some perspective, a friend of mine was also short-faring for about twelve months. They only ever received one letter concerning a single instance of fare evasion, which they dealt with by paying a £73.40 settlement. There was no follow-up or wider investigation into their past travel, and that was the end of the matter.

Of course, every case is different and I can’t say for certain how GTR will handle yours, but it might be reassuring to know that in at least one similar case, things were kept narrowly focused. I’d focus on writing back and expressing remorse, accept responsibility vaguely as then you are not denying other fare invasion cases and request an out-of-court settlement. Many people have found success taking that route and it could spare you the solicitor costs.

If they do happen to engage with you about your other fares, you can then get a solicitor involved perhaps?

 

[jamesluka]

This is an unlikely scenario: a train company cannot prosecute you without evidence that you actually misused tickets, and they would be out of time anyway. They could possibly go down the civil claim route, but so far this seems a rare occurrence.

What is far more likely is that they will respond to your letter asking if they will consider a settlement with a spreadsheet of suspect fares (I can't offhand recall if GTR do this, but other companies do).

You could, if you wish, tell GTR that you have offended more than once and have your spreadsheet ready to compare with theirs, instead of paying a solicitor to do that - it would be interesting to know whether they achieve better results.

Thank you for the response. What is the time after offence is committed to prosecute? And would a civil claim risk any criminal charges? Apologies, my legal knowledge is not the best!

I have already made my own spreadsheet, so I would have that to compare with anything GTR provide.

On your last point, the solicitor did mention that they may be able to negotiate a reduction in the settlement, by deducting the amount I have already spent on the tickets used to short my journeys, they also mentioned the potential of paying return rates in the settlement instead of single fares.

 

[jamesluka]

Thanks for sharing all of this, completely understandable that you’re feeling the weight of it.

Just to add some perspective, a friend of mine was also short-faring for about twelve months. They only ever received one letter concerning a single instance of fare evasion, which they dealt with by paying a £73.40 settlement. There was no follow-up or wider investigation into their past travel, and that was the end of the matter.

Of course, every case is different and I can’t say for certain how GTR will handle yours, but it might be reassuring to know that in at least one similar case, things were kept narrowly focused. I’d focus on writing back and expressing remorse, accept responsibility vaguely as then you are not denying other fare invasion cases and request an out-of-court settlement. Many people have found success taking that route and it could spare you the solicitor costs.

If they do happen to engage with you about your other fares, you can then get a solicitor involved perhaps?

Thank you, this is very reassuring to hear - although, it only makes my current decision harder haha! If I were able to avoid paying any large sums of money that would of course be ideal. Do you know whether your friend directly admitted to shorting the ticket in their response? Or were they less specific and just apologised for having an invalid ticket?

Yes I suppose I could wait to hear their response and then re-engage with the solicitor if they raise other fares and my history.

It's very tough to decide between the safe (but very expensive) option and taking the riskier option to manage it myself but potentially save a significant amount of money. Then, there is also the part of me that feels very guilty and ashamed for what I've done and paying the large sum of what I owe GTR would make me feel better and give me peace of mind about this

 

[saismee]

Thank you for the response. What is the time after offence is committed to prosecute?

Should be 6 months for incorrect tickets, but it can take a few weeks for court papers to reach you. Call it 7 months. They will only prosecute you for the time you are caught, not for the rest (but you will get a criminal sentence and a hefty fine)

And would a civil claim risk any criminal charges?

No, but it might be costly. Civil claims aren't very common, especially if the matter is "resolved" (settled with or without court action). I think it is very unlikely that GTR will pursue civil damages if they only settle for the cost of one journey. I doubt they'd pay someone to go back through old cases to look for misuse!

On your last point, the solicitor did mention that they may be able to negotiate a reduction in the settlement, by deducting the amount I have already spent on the tickets used to short my journeys, they also mentioned the potential of paying return rates in the settlement instead of single fares.

Solicitors will be pretty good at wording things to get the company to give in to a lower settlement, but you also have to consider the cost of the solicitor (~500 pounds for a specialist usually) and the risk that they may not even be able to achieve this.

Your options are:
A) Write your response yourself (and post a draft here for feedback) admitting your guilt for the time you were caught (no need to mention other times). You basically need to convince GTR that you aren't going to do it again. This would either end up with an out-of-court settlement (anytime single fare for every journey + potentially a ~150 pound admin fee, no criminal conviction), or end up with them taking you to court - this usually only happens if your letter is particularly bad or insincere.

B) Get a solicitor to write the response. This is definitely the better option if your goal is to avoid a conviction at all costs, though a conviction isn't very likely at this point. They may be able to negotiate a lower settlement and will be better at showing that you do not intend to repeat this. This option would be multiple hundreds of pounds after solicitor fees and the settlement.

It is very good that you have set money aside in preparation for the settlement. I think it unlikely that GTR will fail to prosecute in time, so you shouldn't really consider waiting an option. Keep in mind that people have settled for 5 digit sums before, you just need to convince GTR that it will not happen again. Purchasing season tickets or railcards could be helpful to show this, but I don't know much about the best practices for responding, so it is better if someone else advises you on this.