Whilst I assume the gate line staff have no right to demand you produce the reservation part
They can demand your ticket. The reservations form part of the ticket and so they're entitled to require you to produce your reservations in just the same way as the ticket itself. With e-tickets, this becomes a moot point as the reservations and itinerary are shown as part of the ticket.
if you do not, I also assume that they have the right to deem the ticket invalid, and proceed down the path of potential prosecution.
Correct.
Equally, although I understand the distinction between the crime of travelling without a ticket, and the imposition of a penalty fare, if I chose not to pay the penalty fare, then an enforcement option involving Court could have ensued?
If you simply ignore the Penalty Fare then it will likely be cancelled and a prosecution commenced. If you appeal it, and the appeals body makes a decision (or the deadline for them to do so elapses without a decision), the TOC is barred from bringing a prosecution and their only remaining recourse - if your appeal was unsuccessful and you don't pay - is to bring a civil claim against you.
It's important to note that merely breaking your journey/stopping short where not permitted
isn't something for which you can be prosecuted. When you do so, you become liable to pay an excess fare - namely the difference between the fare you paid and the cheapest valid walk-up fare that permits break of journey.
Only if you refused to pay this this excess fare that it would be open to the TOC to bring a prosecution. And in no event would it be open to them to issue you with a Penalty Fare.
And so we go back to my main gripe about all of this - because The Railway introduced Advance Tickets (not for the good of our collective health, but as a marketing tool), they were also granted the right to keep you on a train whether you want to be there or not, to the end of the originally specified journey. Pleeping that people might take advantage by buying advance tickets at cheaper rates then baling out early falls into the category, as far as I am concerned, of Tough for The Railway's Opaque Ticketing Systems, and does not justify a disproportionate right to keep people on trains, on pain of prosecution.
It's not on pain of prosecution, but rather on pain of an excess fare. But I agree, it's disproportionate in most circumstances.
In this particular instance, the use of the term "Manchester Stations" on the ticket doubles the potential injustice, if staff interpreted my getting off at Manchester Oxford Road as a transgression for which I might be penalised. I am not suggesting that a passenger with an Advance Ticket should have the right to "break the journey" in the traditional sense, in that they then resume the journey on a later train using the same ticket. I am suggesting that they should have a right to get off the train and abandon the full originally intended journey, without penalty.
Generally speaking I would agree. I do have a little bit of sympathy with the position that you shouldn't be allowed to finish your journey early if your route was only valid by virtue of you using a direct train (e.g. using a circular service the "long" way round).
It's important to note that internal industry guidance has, for over a decade, been to allow people to start late/stop short without penalty, unless there is evidence that it's an attempt to undercut another fare. But of course that guidance isn't something you can rely on, and individual members of staff can "breach" it with impunity.
This is an area where the industry definitely needs to think again.
(Half joking).
