Perhaps railway companies should be stripped of the right to issue private prosecutions

[nanstallon]

Perhaps, with the Post Office scandal showing the dangers of private prosecutions, the railway companies should be stripped of the right to issue private prosecutions. This right is currently being abused, by using the threat of prosecution to extort money from people who have been foolish. They benefit from being allowed to charge the full fare without any allowance for the fare that has already been paid - e.g. someone uses an off peak ticket on a peak hours train. And then adding an admin charge, which may not be justified by genuine expense caused by the irregularity, makes it unfair enrichment.

 

[Brissle Girl]

e.g. someone uses an off peak ticket on a peak hours train

A bad example, as in that instance the only valid recourse is to excess the ticket to an anytime.

 

[nanstallon]

A bad example, as in that instance the only valid recourse is to excess the ticket to an anytime.

So, if you are travelling on a peak hours train with an off peak ticket, you would not risk prosecution, just be excessed?

 

[Brissle Girl]

So, if you are travelling on a peak hours train with an off peak ticket, you would not risk prosecution, just be excessed?

Correct. The Conditions of travel clearly state that:-

9.5
Where you:
9.5.1 are using a time-restricted Ticket (such as an “off-peak” or “super-off-peak” Ticket) that is correctly dated but invalid for the service on which you are travelling; or
9.5.2 are using a route for which your Ticket is not valid; or
9.5.3 break your journey when you are not permitted to do so;

you will be charged the difference between the fare that you have paid and the lowest price Ticket that is valid for the train you are using.

 

[yorkie]

Perhaps, with the Post Office scandal showing the dangers of private prosecutions, the railway companies should be stripped of the right to issue private prosecutions. This right is currently being abused, by using the threat of prosecution to extort money from people who have been foolish.

I agree.

They benefit from being allowed to charge the full fare without any allowance for the fare that has already been paid...

In some cases, but not all!

- e.g. someone uses an off peak ticket on a peak hours train.

Not by the rules, however some railway staff (a minority) do not adhere to the rules; Northern in particular have been found to be issuing penalty fares when not permitted to do so.

And then adding an admin charge, which may not be justified by genuine expense caused by the irregularity, makes it unfair enrichment.

It is indeed unfair and I'd like to see train companies stripped of their powers. Sadly the Government are very keen on penalising rail passengers, so I can't see any changes on the horizon.

 

[Krokodil]

Have you got an example of someone wrongly being sucessfully prosecuted?

 

[Bletchleyite]

Have you got an example of someone wrongly being sucessfully prosecuted?

No, but plenty of examples of effective blackmail using prosecution as leverage. These can be found regularly in the Disputes forum.

ALL private prosecutions should be banned. Only the CPS should have the right to authorise any prosecution with a robust public interest test.

Furthermore, any attempt to bribe or extort money for someone to drop charges should be a criminal offence carrying a mandatory non-suspendable prison sentence; six months would do. Once a prosecution is brought only the CPS should be able to withdraw it, again only because of application of a robust public interest test if more information comes to light.

In effect it's how it works in Scotland, and it works just fine.

Penalty Fares should be used for all ticketing offences that wouldn't come under the Fraud Act, and all appeals should go via an independent statutory body. Where a case would, it should be prosecuted via the BTP and CPS with no option of a settlement. People who wilfully defraud the railway on an ongoing basis (or anyone else) through dishonesty or falsification shouldn't get to pay to get out of it, they should serve a prison sentence and have a record.

 

[Ken H]

The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) do a public interest test. They have published guidelines on how they do this. So if a boyfriend and girlfriend, both 15 they would be unlikely to prosecute even though its criminal and liable to get both kids on the sex offenders register.

Private prosecutions dont have to do that test. Which i contend is wrong. Large organisations like the post office, TV licencing, the RSPCA and the railways should have some sort of regulator to ensure there are not excessive vexatious prosecutions.

This in English & Welsh law. Scotland law differs

 

[jfollows]

Have you got an example of someone wrongly being sucessfully prosecuted?

No, as stated, but there’ll be lots of people who’ve paid the incorrectly-issued penalty fare.

 

[yorkie]

Have you got an example of someone wrongly being sucessfully prosecuted?

Hopefully not, as people who find out about this forum can generally avoid it, due to the advice available here.

So you're effectively asking if we know of people who didn't know about the forum; which, by definition, we don't.

However, many people have come close and would have been successfully prosecuted by our broken system, had they not got advice from us.

This person was prosecuted by XC, despite having a valid ticket:

Taken to court, facing criminal charges advice needed

I have been taken to court for supposedly "boarding a train without a valid ticket and with intent to evade fare" I was on a return journey from Manchester to Andover where I had a "via London ticket" however boarded a not via London route (not knowing this would be an issue) The Conductor said...

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They paid a 4-figure sum to solicitors who got the case dropped, but the customer didn't recover their costs (I did offer them access to a solicitor on a no win no fee basis, but they declined, and instructed their own solicitor instead)

There are loads of Penalty Fares being incorrectly issued by rogue companies like Northern; if people don't pay the PFs then the TOCs can prosecute, and if the falsely accused passenger didn't have proper representation, I suspect the legal system would find them guilty.

Advance single - got on one station later (fined pfn)

Hi all, I have just made a journey from burly park to Harrogate (Northern). I got on the train and showed my ticket because the inspector asked for tickets from burley park and I showed my ticket. She then fined me because it voids the advanced single terms and conditions. I would normally...

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Unfairly given penalty fare by Northern for off-peak ticket?

Today I was travelling from Warrington West to Warrington Central station on the 16:28 train. I purchased an off-peak day return ticket on the Trainline app for £2.70 a few minutes before the train arrived. When I got to Warrington Central I was told that the ticket was invalid as it was now...

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Northern Rail Penalty Fare Notice

Hi, I’ve received a fine for boarding a train at the wrong station. The reason on my fine is (other) boarded at wrong station on advance ticket (split journey). I’ve not seen anyone receive a ticket for this reason and would like some advice please. So I had a ticket for York - Harrogate...

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If someone was prepared to pay me for my time, I could come up with dozens of similar instances over the years, but I'm not prepared to spend ages on this, but trust me we've seen lots of these before.

A well known LNER Guard has caused issues for passengers going back at least 14 years, e.g:

https://www.railforums.co.uk/threads/norwich-peterborough-york-combo-ticket-problem.35445

That case was resolved because the customer met me at The Fox in York and I gave them suitable advice, however had they not done so, they were facing prosecution if they did not pay the fare that the company (East Coast, at the time) was demanding. The Guard concerned is very well known on the route, to this day. A few years ago he once charged me for a ticket when I had a totally valid ticket; I paid it - under duress - and I had to really argue my case to get a refund. Eventually, I got a free 1st class ticket from anywhere to anywhere on LNER. Another forum member (sadly since passed away) was denied travel via Peterborough on a "via Peterborough" ticket.

I suspect many of the people wrongly charged were not aware of how to get advice, as not everyone knows about this forum; if any of them refused to pay and didn't know how to defend themselves, then I suspect they would have been prosecuted.


And what about this one:

EMR Guard Refusing To Accept Post Strike Day Ticket

I have just received a text message from my somewhat upset daughter on her way back to Reading University from Matlock… She was due to travel back to university yesterday (Monday Cross Country Strike Day) and was using the return half of an off peak return Matlock -Birmingham and then advance...

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If the customer refused to pay, they'd no doubt be threatened with prosecution, and if they didn't know about this forum and didn't pay for legal representation, they could be found guilty.

Chiltern used to be a respectable company, but not content with running an awful service these days, they are also wrongly threatening passengers with prosecution:

Super Off-Peak on an Off-Peak

Hi all - I have 3 points I would greatly appreciate guidance on; 1: I was caught with a super off-peak ticket on an off-peak train from London to Birmingham (Chiltern). The ticket guy took my address down and told me I should expect a letter in the next 3-4 weeks. A) should I expect to get a...

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There are insufficient safeguards in place at many TOCs, resulting in inappropriate charges and/or threats of prosecution against passengers who either held valid tickets, or tickets which contractually should be regularised by charging an excess fare.

So many TOCs are up to no good, it's a major scandal, just waiting for the right people in the media to pick up on it.

 

[Krokodil]

ALL private prosecutions should be banned. Only the CPS should have the right to authorise any prosecution with a robust public interest test.

I'm afraid that I don't have much faith in the CPS, too many victims have been failed by it. "Criminal Protection Service" or "Couldn't Prosecute Satan" are monikers used by the police, frustrated after hours spent on hold to CPS Direct, only for the answer to be "no". At one police station some wag pasted up a picture of Little Britain's Carol Beer with the caption "CPS says no".

. I had a passenger threaten me and an off-duty colleague with a weapon at work. All captured on bodycam, the offender had quite a history etc. An easy prosecution (and indeed he plead guilty when the case finally made it to court). The CPS sat on it for months and months (dropped into their Spam folder apparently), it took BTP escalating to a very senior level before someone in the CPS finally pulled their finger out, in the nick of time before the six month egg timer ran out.

Plenty of cases of the CPS negotiating serious cases down for an easy win - An attempt murder charge in one case I'm aware of becoming not merely GBH, but they tried to charge the offender with the comparatively trivial offence of ABH before the police pushed to have a GBH charge brought. The presiding judge told the court that the CPS couldn't give him a good reason why they weren't charging with attempt murder.

The defibrilator at a station was stolen, and BTP caught him. The CPS said that prosecution was "not in the public interest". What could be more in the public interest than lifesaving equipment?

The right of an individual to bring a prosecution is an important one in my view.

 

[yorkie]

I'm afraid that I don't have much faith in the CPS...

Understood, but they can't be as bad as some train companies!

The likes of Northern in particular are an absolute disgrace in this area.

 

[Bletchleyite]

The right of an individual to bring a prosecution is an important one in my view.

Unfortunately it's been abused too much, so I cannot agree. It's better that ten criminals get off than that one person is wrongly convicted or blackmailed.

A halfway house I could accept would be to repeal the Railway Byelaws and RoRA sections relating to ticketing, leaving only Penalty Fares and fraud, plus introducing the law I suggest making it a criminal offence punished by a prison sentence to in any way use a threat of prosecution to extort money or to offer a bribe to prevent a case being brought or to drop it. If what you are after is owed money, the civil Courts exist for that purpose - simply sue.

But it isn't just the railway - the Post Office scandal highlights that basically nobody can be trusted without an independent public interest test being conducted.

 

[Lloyds siding]

A Government committee has already looked into this issue; the House of Commons Justice Committee published a report in 2020 titled 'Private Prosecutions: Safeguards'

The committee had started their investigations as a result of the Post Office private prosecutions.

Their conclusions include the statement that:

The Government should strengthen the safeguards that regulate private prosecutions to ensure that any organisation that conducts a substantial number of prosecutions is subject to the same regulatory standards and expectations of accountability and transparency as public prosecutors. We recommend that the Government should consider enacting a binding code of standards, enforced by a regulator, that applies to all private prosecutors and investigators.

They also conclude that:

The example of the Post Office litigation shows that some organisations can misuse the right to bring private prosecutions. We agree with Professor John Spencer, from the University of Cambridge, that "no private organisation should be permitted to threaten criminal proceedings to extract money that it believes that it is owed".

 

[Ken H]

A Government committee has already looked into this issue; the House of Commons Justice Committee published a report in 2020 titled 'Private Prosecutions: Safeguards'

The committee had started their investigations as a result of the Post Office private prosecutions.

Their conclusions include the statement that:

They also conclude that:

That would be a good change IMHO. But the CPS also need change so they have to justify the downgrading or abandonment of charges, especially with the 'Not in the public interest' reason. Too many serious sex offenders have got away with apalling crimes because of the CPS being judge and jury. It should be up to a judge/magistrate after 'beyond reasonable doubt' has been proven to determine sentence. Not some civil servant. Bit off topic. Sorry.

 

[Krokodil]

A halfway house I could accept would be to repeal the Railway Byelaws and RoRA sections relating to ticketing, leaving only Penalty Fares and fraud, plus introducing the law I suggest making it a criminal offence punished by a prison sentence to in any way use a threat of prosecution to extort money or to offer a bribe to prevent a case being brought or to drop it. If what you are after is owed money, the civil Courts exist for that purpose - simply sue.

I would be careful what you wish for. Most of the cases that appear in these boards (doughnutting, misuse of Freedom Passes etc.) could be prosecuted under the fraud act. People who post on here in the hope of avoiding a criminal conviction (particularly one as serious as fraud which may have consequences for their employment) would find themselves with no alternative but to plead guilty or be found guilty at court.

 

[Gloster]

I haven’t really studied the matter in detail and only skimmed the thread, but one thought comes to me. All prosecutions and decisions on prosecutions should be taken out of the hands of individual companies and handled by a single organisation allied to the Crown Prosecution Service, although not actually a part of it, to ensure that it is properly regulated and its performance audited. It would also have powers akin to RAIB to act on poor training and management within a company. I realise that there might be problems with politicians giving themselves a way to interfere and bureaucracy.

I await the brickbats.