• Our booking engine at tickets.railforums.co.uk (powered by TrainSplit) helps support the running of the forum with every ticket purchase! Find out more and ask any questions/give us feedback in this thread!

Three penalty notices

Status
Not open for further replies.

Squiremully

New Member
Joined
29 Jul 2021
Messages
1
Location
Faversham
I have three invalid penalty notices. Partly my fault but also caused by their Key online booking system. I rang and they told me that there might be an out of court settlement involved. Any ideas of the amount they ask for?
 
Sponsor Post - registered members do not see these adverts; click here to register, or click here to log in
R

RailUK Forums

AlterEgo

Veteran Member
Joined
30 Dec 2008
Messages
20,038
Location
No longer here
You’ll need to give us some more details here. How are the penalty notices invalid? Do you mean penalty fares? What isn’t valid about them?
 

Fawkes Cat

Established Member
Joined
8 May 2017
Messages
2,943
Let's talk generally about out of court settlements:

It's probably obvious from the name, but an out of court settlement only comes into play if the other side (the railway) think that they can take you to court. And from cases that we see here, that means the criminal courts.

So applying that to what you've told us means that the railway are thinking of prosecuting you. If they do that, and if they win, then you will have to pay a fine, plus compensation (i.e. any train fare that the court decides that you failed to pay) plus court costs, plus some or all of the railway's legal costs. The fine depends on your income but maybe around £200 - £250 (think half a week's income): the compensation will depend on how much the unpaid train fare was: court and legal costs may be another £200 - £300. All these figures are my best guess and not a guaranteed amount but essentially you're talking about a total of over £500. You may also get a 'criminal record' which can impact on your working life (but depending on what you do or want to do for a living may not).

If the railway choose to offer you an out of court settlement (and it's their choice - they don't have to: they can go straight to taking you to court) then they will probably need you to pay the unpaid train fares, plus their admin costs for looking into the matter. The admin costs can be around £200 but again may be less or may be more. If you accept this and pay the settlement, then the matter will be closed: you won't go to court and risk having to pay a fine and so on, and you won't have a criminal record.

But as @AlterEgo has said, we need more information if we're going to be more helpful. Please let us know a bit more (nothing that will identify you so we don't want your name or specific stations, but it would help to know what railway company you are dealing with) and we'll see what we can do to help.
 

island

Veteran Member
Joined
30 Dec 2010
Messages
15,982
Location
0036
Can you please provide additional clarification as to what type of "penalty notice" you have received, and what makes you believe they are invalid?
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Top