My brother: is commuting mon to fri between Wickford and London Liverpool Street on a Greater Anglia (GA) season ticket & Oyster card, heavily subsidised by TfL. He was approached at Liverpool Street to show his ticket and was told He had evaded a GA fare, whilst He gets a 75% discount from GA on journeys from Wickford to Shenfield, he does not get a discount from GA between Shenfield and Liverpool Street: that portion of the journey is subsided by TfL. In short he arrived at Liverpool St on a GA train that day and had, in effect, evaded. What he hadn’t done is evade intentionally.
My brother has been cooperative throughout their enquiries and GA are offering to settle out of court as a result.. sounds great but: 1. The settlement figure is based on the most expensive option: purchase of 2 single tickets per day for 5 days a week minus holidays for the last 14 months; and 2. This out of court option does not give him the option/right to prove this was an error by providing proof his mental health (at the time he started commuting) was poor following trauma: resulting in poor concentration and inability to take in and retain new information. Proof of which he can obtain from the health sector and, potentially but not preferably, his employer.
The GA guy he met admitted the variables in fares generated by reciprocal arrangements between operators was a minefield. So how do they get away with fining someone full whack who has no criminal record and was not in the frame of mind to understand he was ill, or the right frame of mind to interpret and take in complex Ts & Cs, when he started this regular commute?
Makes for an interesting contrast with GAs efforts to make train travel accessible - a condition of their operating license - for those with physical and sensory impairments, & HMRCs stance on taking mental health into account when deciding whether to fine people not submitting their returns on time.
I understand fare evasion is a big issue, but unintentionally failing to cover the entire cost of your journey because you were traumatised when you started making the journey is very different: on what grounds do they justify not taking such circumstances into account? (Burden of proof on my brother of course, but that’s not an issue.) He certainly shouldn’t have to go to court for that chance to have such a significant mitigating factor taken into account.
Preferred outcome: pay their admin costs + 1000 (which is just over what he would have paid on a season ticket for the ‘evaded’ element of the journey). Current outcome: pay £6k including costs in 10 days.. for making a mistake when mentally ill.
Kicking a man whilst he’s down is a term that springs to mind. Sadly I can hear he doesn’t have the mental strength to fight this and is scared of losing his job if he tried and failed.
My brother has been cooperative throughout their enquiries and GA are offering to settle out of court as a result.. sounds great but: 1. The settlement figure is based on the most expensive option: purchase of 2 single tickets per day for 5 days a week minus holidays for the last 14 months; and 2. This out of court option does not give him the option/right to prove this was an error by providing proof his mental health (at the time he started commuting) was poor following trauma: resulting in poor concentration and inability to take in and retain new information. Proof of which he can obtain from the health sector and, potentially but not preferably, his employer.
The GA guy he met admitted the variables in fares generated by reciprocal arrangements between operators was a minefield. So how do they get away with fining someone full whack who has no criminal record and was not in the frame of mind to understand he was ill, or the right frame of mind to interpret and take in complex Ts & Cs, when he started this regular commute?
Makes for an interesting contrast with GAs efforts to make train travel accessible - a condition of their operating license - for those with physical and sensory impairments, & HMRCs stance on taking mental health into account when deciding whether to fine people not submitting their returns on time.
I understand fare evasion is a big issue, but unintentionally failing to cover the entire cost of your journey because you were traumatised when you started making the journey is very different: on what grounds do they justify not taking such circumstances into account? (Burden of proof on my brother of course, but that’s not an issue.) He certainly shouldn’t have to go to court for that chance to have such a significant mitigating factor taken into account.
Preferred outcome: pay their admin costs + 1000 (which is just over what he would have paid on a season ticket for the ‘evaded’ element of the journey). Current outcome: pay £6k including costs in 10 days.. for making a mistake when mentally ill.
Kicking a man whilst he’s down is a term that springs to mind. Sadly I can hear he doesn’t have the mental strength to fight this and is scared of losing his job if he tried and failed.
