Fawkes Cat
Established Member
- Joined
- 8 May 2017
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In the last few days we've had a couple of threads about different railway companies where
- passenger has been caught fare dodging but has settled the incident (off the top of my head I am not sure if this is only by out of court settlement or whether penalty fares have also applied)
- railway then researches (earlier) online ticket purchases and comes back to passenger to seek further information, apparently with a view to seeking either a further out of court settlement or maybe prosecution.
The fact that we've had two of these on (I think) the same day suggests a change of policy: we'll all have our own view on whether this is a good change or not. But I have started this thread so we can discuss in general terms what advice we should give.
To start with, there's the question of whether charges *can* be brought after six months: to give something to get us going, here's my take from one of the advice threads;
- passenger has been caught fare dodging but has settled the incident (off the top of my head I am not sure if this is only by out of court settlement or whether penalty fares have also applied)
- railway then researches (earlier) online ticket purchases and comes back to passenger to seek further information, apparently with a view to seeking either a further out of court settlement or maybe prosecution.
The fact that we've had two of these on (I think) the same day suggests a change of policy: we'll all have our own view on whether this is a good change or not. But I have started this thread so we can discuss in general terms what advice we should give.
To start with, there's the question of whether charges *can* be brought after six months: to give something to get us going, here's my take from one of the advice threads;
(...) please note that I am not a lawyer so I may have misunderstood the process or get the words wrong.
Typically, if a fare-dodger is taken to court then they are charged under either the railway byelaws or the Regulation of the Railways Act ('RoRA'). Both of these are charges which can be heard in the magistrates' court, and the rule for the magistrates' court is that the court must be told about the charge within six months of the incident.
But the byelaws and RoRA aren't the only possible charges: fraud is another charge - and I think it is accepted that buying a ticket for one journey when you are planning to use it for another, more expensive journey meets the definition of fraud.
Fraud cases are heard in the Crown Court rather than the magistrates' court. And the six month limit doesn't apply in the Crown Court.
So just because more than six months have passed, that doesn't guarantee that no action will be taken. Going back to a 'typical' case where only one occurrence is being pursued, in practice the six months bar does apply. But I can see that it might be different if the railway think that they are pursuing multiple breaches of the law.
(...)