"Forced to pay twice for a rail ticket" - one passenger travels with 2 Two Together tickets

[island]

That is one interpretation, but as I frequently find myself telling you, the courts may or may not agree with you.

 

[ForTheLoveOf]

That is one interpretation, but as I frequently find myself telling you, the courts may or may not agree with you.

The senior Courts have ruled that intentionless failure to have/produce a ticket is not, and cannot be, an offence per se, many, many times in the past. As you can tell, each case concerns a different railway and their own (similar) Byelaws, from before Grouping.

RoRA has not changed in respect of the requirement to prove intent since those cases, and neither has the fundamental principle of secondary legislation being unable to modify primary legislation. So there is no way that a Court could possibly rule otherwise - the situation is the same now as it was then!

 

[island]

If that’s so, why do you think the byelaws have not been thrown out over the course of their 13 years of operation and innumerable prosecutions?

 

[ForTheLoveOf]

If that’s so, why do you think the byelaws have not been thrown out over the course of their 13 years of operation and innumerable prosecutions?

Do you have any evidence that any such challenge has ever been attempted? If not, I would suggest that is the simply reason - the matter has not arisen. Such Byelaws had "existed" for many years in respect of the cases I cited (and others) and yet they were still declared ultra vires, as they always had been.

The fact that a challenge has not been made is probably more likely to be a factor of the relatively low number of prosecutions (in comparison to other offences) and the fact that in many cases the defendant is likely to want to get the matter over and done with with as minimal stress and cost as possible.

Very, very few people fall into the category of being accused of a Byelaw 18 offence - and there being no suggestion of a RoRA offence - who then also have the time, effort, willingness (and, crucially, the money) to defend themselves properly and to fight the unlawful prosecution they are facing.

What I do know is that if I were ever to face such a prosecution then I would absolutely engage this defence. It is unacceptable that people who, in many cases, have no malicious or fraudulent intent are able to be criminalised.

 

[najaB]

Byelaw 18 attempts to do so (by removing the requirement for intent to be proven for a RoRA Sec. 5(3)(a) offence to be proven) but cannot do so and is therefore ultra vires.

The difference is that Byelaw 18 is concerned with entering a train to travel, where RoRA is concerned with travelling beyond the distance for which a fare has been paid. They are two difference offences (in that Byelaw 18 doesn't cover short-faring and RoRA 5.3 doesn't make it an offence to board without a ticket).

So there's no conflict between the two.

 

[furlong]

I think island's point is that you ought not to be stating that it is ultra vires in its current form unless and until the courts rule as such. (A ruling relating to some previous byelaw has no automatic effect on a new one - there needs to be a separate new successful challenge, and, as of today, this has not happened.)

 

[furlong]

The difference is that Byelaw 18 is concerned with entering a train to travel, where RoRA is concerned with travelling beyond the distance for which a fare has been paid. They are two difference offences (in that Byelaw 18 doesn't cover short-faring and RoRA 5.3 doesn't make it an offence to board without a ticket).

So there's no conflict between the two.

RORA says "Travels or attempts to travel on a railway without having previously paid his fare, and with intent to avoid payment thereof;"
The current byelaw says "enter any train for the purpose of travelling on the railway unless he has with him a valid ticket entitling him to travel."

I think the argument amounts to: disregarding the "with intent to avoid payment" requirement of RORA, if (as per the byelaw) someone enters a train for the purpose of travelling on the the railway and does not have with him a valid ticket entitling him to travel (allowing for the exceptions where tickets weren't available or he had authorisation), he is (as per RORA) travelling or attempting to travel on a railway without having previously paid his fare - and so RORA already captures the situation covered by the byelaw but additionally requires "intent to avoid payment" and already specifies the (financial) penalty so the byelaw shouldn't attempt to vary those two things. Then if the byelaw is held to encode the "intent to avoid payment" within it (through its exceptions), the byelaw isn't needed because the existing RORA offence can already be used. And if it isn't, it's attempting to modify the RORA offence, which it can't - either way, this line of argument goes, RORA should always be used.