Retrospective prosecution for fare evasion - has it been successful in court yet?

[Fawkes Cat]

Because policing doesn't work like that. If they catch someone committing a crime they don't just leave it at that, they investigate whether other crimes have been committed.

So those would be crimes that they suspect have been committed then?

We seem to be saying the same thing.

 

[BRX]

Because policing doesn't work like that. If they catch someone committing a crime they don't just leave it at that, they investigate whether other crimes have been committed.

Fairly sure I recall some threads here where people who haven't been prosecuted or caught fare dodging have received a letter saying that some kind of irregularities have been identified in their purchase history (it may have been delay repay claims) and asking for comment. That is, it would seem the TOC has gone through their purchase history even though there's no evidence they've done anything wrong.

 

[Krokodil]

It will depend on the scale & value.

For example if someone has a history of using eTickets between London Bridge & Blackfriars (for example) where there is no entry scan (and no exit scan on the return) getting caught with an address away from London where the station doesn't have barriers then is it wrong for the TOC to go down the fraud route?

For fraud they will need to gather some evidence rather than merely a hunch. There was a C4 programme on TfL's revenue protection which showed how they tracked the known journeys of suspects and organised stings to intercept them.

Because policing doesn't work like that. If they catch someone committing a crime they don't just leave it at that, they investigate whether other crimes have been committed.

Generally only where there's a reasonable suspicion. You wouldn't get a warrant on the basis of many of the fishing expeditions we've seen.

 

[Haywain]

Generally only where there's a reasonable suspicion.

Like having committed a crime?

 

[infobleep]

Two different scenarios exist here though, if they check a traditional Oyster card they will immediately know if you’re not yet touched in, as that history is written to the card, and you will probably incur at least a Penalty fare.

It is correct to note that they don’t know during a revenue check if a contactless card is touched in, that is what needs a back office check later.

Will someone get a fine if they don't touch in with a contactless card and they are stopped or is the system bias towards Oyster card users? Not that I agree with travelling without a ticket.

If you don't like the fare charged, use split ticketing, learn the routing guide or even better, both.

 

[BRX]

Like having committed a crime?

Here's one of the threads I recall reading

Delay Repay Irregularity

Hi, I have received a letter from LNER with the following information: Following a review of our Delay Repay system we have identified multiple irregular claims submitted by yourself. Submitting a claim for Delay Repay for a journey you have not made would constitute an offence under The Fraud...

www.railforums.co.uk

Seemed to be a pure fishing expedition, although in this case it's perhaps just LNER reviewing data they already hold, rather than obtaining people's purchase records from third parties.

 

[Starmill]

I honestly felt like I had NO presumption of innocence.

You don't when the matter isn't at court. That's the whole point.

 

[AlterEgo]

Here's one of the threads I recall reading

Delay Repay Irregularity

Hi, I have received a letter from LNER with the following information: Following a review of our Delay Repay system we have identified multiple irregular claims submitted by yourself. Submitting a claim for Delay Repay for a journey you have not made would constitute an offence under The Fraud...

www.railforums.co.uk

Seemed to be a pure fishing expedition, although in this case it's perhaps just LNER reviewing data they already hold, rather than obtaining people's purchase records from third parties.

If you caught an employee taking £10 from the till would you just leave it at that or would you investigate your other till shortages over the last year as well? Even the ones which had been written off?

I get that this is fraught with difficulties and nuance and there's no right answer.

 

[Starmill]

If you caught an employee taking £10 from the till would you just leave it at that or would you investigate your other till shortages over the last year as well? Even the ones which had been written off?

I get that this is fraught with difficulties and nuance and there's no right answer.

Yes, if an offence has been admitted to, or evidence would be available to prove it.

 

[BRX]

If you caught an employee taking £10 from the till would you just leave it at that or would you investigate your other till shortages over the last year as well? Even the ones which had been written off?

I get that this is fraught with difficulties and nuance and there's no right answer.

In that case, as far as I know, the OP had not done anything wrong ... they had not been caught taking £10 from the till, or the equivalent.

 

[dakta]

In the case of an employee all you'd need is a reasonable suspicion anyway

 

[MikeWh]

After some persistence in attempting to prosecute me for long-term fare evasion, I was able to provide them with my contactless bank card journey history, which proved I was travelling to and from my mother's house with enormous frequency. This dragged on for a couple of months, and I was shocked to the extent they were attempting to reach to attempt to pin something on me that wasn't there. I was ONLY able to shut them down by providing evidence of my own which blew their assumptions out of the water. I honestly felt like I had NO presumption of innocence.

This paragraph bothers me a lot. Presumably there was no e-ticket history at all on days when you stayed at your mother's house. Surely if they ask why you were travelling less frequently, and you say because you were staying in London, they should just leave it at that. I would seriously consider lodging a complaint about this, once the original fare evasion issue had been dealt with.

Full disclosure. I am aware of several other cases where GTR revenue/fraud teams have tried to pin repeated fare evasion on Oyster users where they had done nothing wrong. You are indeed correct to categorise them as "not very nice people".

 

[Krokodil]

Like having committed a crime?

If you get nicked for shoplifting (ignoring that it's basically decriminalised these days) the police aren't going to follow up by asking if you've still got the receipt for the microwave in your kitchen at home.

Generally unless there are items known to be outstanding I doubt that they will even be applying for a search warrant.

 

[Fawkes Cat]

If you get nicked for shoplifting (ignoring that it's basically decriminalised these days) the police aren't going to follow up by asking if you've still got the receipt for the microwave in your kitchen at home.

But surely this is less a matter of principle than one of practicality.

It’s not practical to follow up whether people have retained paper records of past events, especially when there’s no obligation to. And as far as I can see from this forum, there used to be no attempt to follow up (suspected) fare dodging when that would rely on the suspect producing paper tickets that a reasonable person would have thrown away.

But now people buy tickets on line, so there is easily obtainable evidence of what the suspect has done - held by (e.g.) Trainline and so practically available from a source other than the suspect. The retail parallel might be asking (e.g.) Amazon for details of the items the suspect has obtained rather than asking the suspect for paper receipts as proof of what they have got from Tesco.

There can be no doubt that the balance of power has changed in the detection of fare dodging. The question surely has to be whether the old balance was right so that the rules need to be changed to restore suspect’s* rights to where they previously were, or whether this change is welcome in that it improves detection of wrong doing.

*Deliberate choice of term. A suspect may be guilty. Or they may be innocent. Either way, they are swept up with the effective enhancement of the investigator‘s powers.

 

[Haywain]

If you get nicked for shoplifting (ignoring that it's basically decriminalised these days) the police aren't going to follow up by asking if you've still got the receipt for the microwave in your kitchen at home.

Generally unless there are items known to be outstanding I doubt that they will even be applying for a search warrant.

If you are known to have a record of burglary and handling stolen goods as well as shoplifting they may well take the opportunity to see if your home is filled with items that have been stolen on other occasions.

 

[BRX]

Possibly we don't know quite how much the "balance of power" has shifted until a few of these kinds of cases (where there's evidence of ticket purchases but no direct evidence of journeys actually made) make it to court.

The way it looks to me, currently the TOCs are making use of a fear/threat that historic purchase info can be used to pin multiple offences on "suspects".

If some cases get to court, and it's decided that no, the purchase history on its own is not sufficient, and it's not reasonable to expect the "suspect" to have to prove how they travelled on each day in question, then things would change somewhat.

Hence my original question in this thread, I guess.

 

[Starmill]

This paragraph bothers me a lot. Presumably there was no e-ticket history at all on days when you stayed at your mother's house. Surely if they ask why you were travelling less frequently, and you say because you were staying in London, they should just leave it at that. I would seriously consider lodging a complaint about this, once the original fare evasion issue had been dealt with.

Full disclosure. I am aware of several other cases where GTR revenue/fraud teams have tried to pin repeated fare evasion on Oyster users where they had done nothing wrong. You are indeed correct to categorise them as "not very nice people".

I imagine it's partly the business being financially weak. They've been told they need to find some more money, so rather than cracking down on legitimate fare evaders, which is difficult and expensive, they've just gone for some people they think will be a soft touch and hand over their hard-earned cash. Of course that in no way justifies it - quite the opposite I'd say.

 

[Fawkes Cat]

they've just gone for some people they think will be a soft touch and hand over their hard-earned cash

Have we any evidence of that? Accepting that not everyone who gets a rude letter from the railway comes to us for advice, I don't recall seeing any postings here which say 'I have never fare dodged in my life yet the railway are threatening me with prosecution on the basis of my Trainline record'*. Rather, we see posts which say 'I have been picked up for fare dodging <which may or may not have been resolved out of court>: now the railway are looking at my Trainline record and accusing me of fare dodging in the past'. So the railway are using @Haywain's (I think - I haven't scrolled back to check) test of suspecting people who are already proven fare dodgers and seeking whether there are other past instances which might amount to fare dodging.

*I suppose we do occasionally see these. But in fairly short order it emerges that actually there was an instance of fare dodging - only in their view, they're a special case and it wasn't really fare dodging so why would the railway think that it was?

(Edited to strike through because @Starmill points out a huge and obvious hole in my argument in the next post)

 

[Starmill]

Have we any evidence of that? Accepting that not everyone who gets a rude letter from the railway comes to us for advice, I don't recall seeing any postings here which say 'I have never fare dodged in my life yet the railway are threatening me with prosecution on the basis of my Trainline record'*. Rather, we see posts which say 'I have been picked up for fare dodging <which may or may not have been resolved out of court>: now the railway are looking at my Trainline record and accusing me of fare dodging in the past'. So the railway are using @Haywain's (I think - I haven't scrolled back to check) test of suspecting people who are already proven fare dodgers and seeking whether there are other past instances which might amount to fare dodging.

*I suppose we do occasionally see these. But in fairly short order it emerges that actually there was an instance of fare dodging - only in their view, they're a special case and it wasn't really fare dodging so why would the railway think that it was?

Yes because that's exactly what @MikeWh is referring to. The thread linked above from LNER is the same.

 

[Fawkes Cat]

Yes because that's exactly what @MikeWh is referring to. The thread linked above from LNER is the same.

Good point, well made.

 

[Tetchytyke]

Accepting that not everyone who gets a rude letter from the railway comes to us for advice

What’s more telling is the fact we don’t get people coming to us for advice where they’re saying “I was in a big group and I told the ticket inspector to **** off whilst showing him my LOVE AND HATE knuckle tattoos and then I jumped over the ticket barrier and ran off”.

I’ve said before that I find it *fascinating* that the demographic of people coming here predominantly tends to be young or foreign or both students and young professionals.

Possibly we don't know quite how much the "balance of power" has shifted until a few of these kinds of cases (where there's evidence of ticket purchases but no direct evidence of journeys actually made) make it to court.

In general the “balance of power” comes with the threat of prosecution, not with the actual prosecution.

Even if you have your day in court and win, you will be out of pocket.

 

[Starmill]

In general the “balance of power” comes with the threat of prosecution, not with the actual prosecution.

Even if you have your day in court and win, you will be out of pocket.

Indeed. There's little recourse, although you would of course have defended a principle if you were to win. It would be very difficult to get compensation for a prosecution on wholly unreasonable grounds.

What’s more telling is the fact we don’t get people coming to us for advice where they’re saying “I was in a big group and I told the ticket inspector to **** off whilst showing him my LOVE AND HATE knuckle tattoos and then I jumped over the ticket barrier and ran off”.

Indeed, as you hint, anyone taking that approach is overwhelmingly likely to get away with it penalty-free. The only chance of stopping them is if police officers are already at the scene and can coerce the person to hand themselves in, or if there are enough of them to succeed in an arrest.

 

[Haywain]

I’ve said before that I find it *fascinating* that the demographic of people coming here predominantly tends to be young or foreign or both students and young professionals.

That could be because that demographic are more likely to seek help in this way, and are less experienced in life and therefore much more concerned about the consequences. You could equally make the point that a disproportionate number of them are expecting to work in certain professions (legal/healthcare) or suffer from severe anxiety.

 

[dakta]

The anxiety argument always interested me, I suffer anxiety and it means I avoid certain social situations, get stressed when things go wrong (as such I try and actively avoid and pre-plan to avoid things going wrong to the nth degree) and so forth, it makes you worry about eventualities that haven't happened (checked your wallet for the ticket because the inspectors halfway down the carriage, you haven't lost it since you last checked? It does affect people differently so I didn't want to be callous about it but I always thought people with anxiety who dodge tickets but then find themselves massively aflicted when challenged were rather, well, brave in the outset.

Might just be me, because the way it affects me it limits me doing things I'm perfectly entitled to

 

[Brissle Girl]

The anxiety argument always interested me, I suffer anxiety and it means I avoid certain social situations, get stressed when things go wrong (as such I try and actively avoid and pre-plan to avoid things going wrong to the nth degree) and so forth, it makes you worry about eventualities that haven't happened (checked your wallet for the ticket because the inspectors halfway down the carriage, you haven't lost it since you last checked? It does affect people differently so I didn't want to be callous about it but I always thought people with anxiety who dodge tickets but then find themselves massively aflicted when challenged were rather, well, brave in the outset.

Might just be me, because the way it affects me it limits me doing things I'm perfectly entitled to

Agree - the number of people who admit to having evaded the correct fare and then wheel out the "suffer from anxiety" point is curious. I don't suffer from it, but sure as hell if I were trying to evade my fare I'd be anxious the whole journey, and much more so if I am then picked up and suffer the consequences. So I regard it as a very weak mitigating factor where it is clear that fare evasion was being carried out (as opposed to someone who has through ignorance of the system found themselves the wrong side of a penalty fare or worse) - if you want to minimise your anxiety don't break the law.

 

[Krokodil]

If you are known to have a record of burglary and handling stolen goods as well as shoplifting they may well take the opportunity to see if your home is filled with items that have been stolen on other occasions.

If they were to search your house and found something with the security tag still on it then it probably was stolen. They aren't going to question you about the microwave in the kitchen on the off-chance that it may have been stolen.

I maintain that the best way to deal with suspicious journey patterns is to do a plain clothes sting.

What’s more telling is the fact we don’t get people coming to us for advice where they’re saying “I was in a big group and I told the ticket inspector to **** off whilst showing him my LOVE AND HATE knuckle tattoos and then I jumped over the ticket barrier and ran off”.

In the case of the last two people who did that to me that would be because their legal aid solicitor is better qualified than anyone on the forum to advise them of how to get off of a threatening behaviour/public order/offensive weapon charge (though in both cases they ended up pleading guilty, BWV footage is really useful here). I would imagine that it's quite difficult to log into the forum from a cell in a custody suite or from a remand prison.

Indeed, as you hint, anyone taking that approach is overwhelmingly likely to get away with it penalty-free. The only chance of stopping them is if police officers are already at the scene and can coerce the person to hand themselves in, or if there are enough of them to succeed in an arrest.

Body-worn video is a very useful tool. Even before it has been downloaded though, you'd be surprised how quickly these people can be picked up. They are often known to the police and might get arrested by the local force for something else, with BTP turning up at the custody suite to interview them for that matter too. One of them failed to turn up to court - because he was already in prison for something else! Besides, criminal types aren't that bright. You'd think that they'd keep their heads down but instead he started running when he saw a police officer. Way to draw attention to yourself.

 

[Tetchytyke]

That could be because that demographic are more likely to seek help in this way, and are less experienced in life and therefore much more concerned about the consequences.

Perhaps.

My suspicion is their being “less experienced in life” is why they are attractive to prosecution departments. Anecdote is not the same as data, but I’ve seen it on numerous occasions where revenue staff treat students and young professionals very differently to people in their 50s and 60s. I’ve had to intervene before on TPE where a student was being accused of lying about being given permission to board a train, and the RPI was reaching for the MG11.

But, as I say, anecdote is not the same as data. I feel an FOI request coming on.

I do, however, find it strange that we don’t receive queries from a wider range of people, with a wider range of backgrounds and experience levels. If the TOCs are being even-handed and not just targeting the low-hanging fruit, one would expect to see more queries. This forum ranks very highly on search engines, after all.

suffer from severe anxiety

I’m much more cynical about anxiety, though. It’s amazing how the anxiety only appears when they’ve been caught.

 

[75A]

I’m much more cynical about anxiety, though. It’s amazing how the anxiety only appears when they’ve been caught.

Funny that isn't it?

 

[Dai Corner]

My suspicion is their being “less experienced in life” is why they are attractive to prosecution departments. Anecdote is not the same as data, but I’ve seen it on numerous occasions where revenue staff treat students and young professionals very differently to people in their 50s and 60s. I’ve had to intervene before on TPE where a student was being accused of lying about being given permission to board a train, and the RPI was reaching for the MG11.

I'm in my 60s and found myself half way through buying an e-ticket on my phone as I boarded a train; a situation we've had in these forums before. The guard accepted my explanation and didn't even come back to check. I am very rarely stopped and asked to show my senior Railcard at gate lines either.

 

[spag23]

I feel an FOI request coming on.

Are TOCs subject to FOI?I thought it was just public bodies. Maybe if the railways were nationalised.....?