TIL child/short ticket - next steps...

[sillyperson]

Hi all,

A fool here!

In June, when extremely tight on cash and desperate to get to my new job, I boarded a train at one location but bought a child ticket from a closer station. I got caught.

I've now received correspondence from TIL asking for mitigation. I've gone through all of this forum, and understand I should ask for an out of court settlement and explain I've learnt my lesson (which, I most definitely have!!!). Does it help for me to call out getting a rail card, etc?

Secondly, I'm intrigued as I've seen on this forum members explaining that I must be taken to court within 6 months of the offence date. Is this really the case, i.e. 26 weeks? My offence was on June 5 - what's the likelihood they may not be able to take me to court in the timeframe? Wishful thinking, I know.

I have a horrible feeling this will be a Regulation of Railways Act offence rather than Railway Byelaws, so any, any, any advice to help me out would be greatly appreciated. I know everyone says the same, but I'm terrified of the effect this will have on my DBS (both normal and enhanced). I've only recently found a new job after losing mine over the pandemic so extremely scared.

Thanks in advance all.

 

[Fawkes Cat]

Welcome to the forum.

Explaining what steps you've taken to make sure that you don't offend again won't do any harm, so you may as well include it in your letter to TIL.

I wouldn't recommend trying to run down the clock on court action: the six month time limit is for the railway to notify the case to the court - not for the case to be heard. If you have received TIL's letter today, then you probably have a couple of weeks in which to respond: let's call this a generous three weeks which (even more generously) takes us to the end of November. If you do not respond or TIL do not find your response satisfactory that still allows them all of December (and a few days at the start of January) to refer the case to court.

And the best way to guarantee that nothing will appear on a DBS is to resolve the matter before it gets to court - which seems to me to be a further reason not to rely on getting the railway to run out of time. But by the sounds of things you have read around the forum, so you will see that my view is that in most circumstances having a minor offence such as fare dodging on your record will not cause a problem with most employers: the important thing is that it's a one off incident rather than a pattern of dishonest behaviour.

 

[Hadders]

Welcome to the forum!

Here’s the advice I normally give to people who come here seeking advice on letter they’ve received about a ticketing irregularity.

You might want to include the following in your reply:

- That you are sorry for what has happened
- What you have learned from the incident
- That you are keen to settle the matter without the need for court action
- Offer to pay the outstanding fare and the train company's administrative costs in dealing with the matter

Make sure your reply is short and concise, don't give a sob story - they've heard it all before. Most train companies are usually prepared to offer an administrative settlement (commonly known as an out of court settlement) for people who engage with the process and who haven't come to their attention before. There is no guarantee of this and the train company would be well within their rights to prosecute you in the magistrates court.

If you are offered a settlement the amount varies depending on the train company and circumstances but tend to be a few hundred pounds plus the outstanding fare. An out of court settlement might appear to be a fine, but it isn't and you won't have a criminal record as a result of accepting one.

Feel free to post a draft of your reply on here and we will be happy to proof read.

 

[Nipa]

Hey I was actually in the exact same position as you not too long ago. Feel free to reach out if u need any help or are anxious about anything.

 

[sillyperson]

Hey all, thanks for your responses - does the below look okay?

Dear xxx,

I hope you are well.

I want to start by explaining how sorry I am for what happened on the 7th June 2021. I made a terrible mistake which I have been thinking continuously about since it happened. I understand completely that instances such as this cause the railway to lose revenue which has a knock-on effect elsewhere, and for that I am sorry. I shouldn't have made such a careless error.

I now understand how important it is to ensure that you have the right ticket, all of the time. I've taken steps personally to ensure that I am never in this position again, ensuring that I constantly have the correct 16-25 railcard on me and not travelling when I don't have the financial means to do so.

I really hope that we can settle this matter out of court. I am extremely scared and nervous about this prospect. I would ask that if possible, would I be allowed to pay any outstanding fare, administrative costs for both Chiltern Railways and TIL and any further costs required to prevent this from going to court? I'm just really hoping there's a way to fix this.

I hope to hear from you soon and pray there is something I can do to make this right.

Many thanks,
xxx

Hey I was actually in the exact same position as you not too long ago. Feel free to reach out if u need any help or are anxious about anything.

Hey, thanks. I did read your thread, seems like persistence paid off... hoping the same for me.

 

[Haywain]

Hey all, thanks for your responses - does the below look okay?



Hey, thanks. I did read your thread, seems like persistence paid off... hoping the same for me.

That looks fine to me.

 

[Fawkes Cat]

Hey all, thanks for your responses - does the below look okay?

Dear xxx,

I hope you are well.

I want to start by explaining how sorry I am for what happened on the 7th June 2021. I made a terrible mistake which I have been thinking continuously about since it happened. I understand completely that instances such as this cause the railway to lose revenue which has a knock-on effect elsewhere, and for that I am sorry. I shouldn't have made such an careless error. (reason - buying a child ticket from a different station is not 'careless'. It's deliberate and while you don't need to beat yourself up about it in the letter, neither should you suggest that you don't understand what you did.)

I now understand how important it is to ensure that you have the right ticket, all of the time. I've taken steps personally to ensure that I am never in this position again:
- I have now bought a 16-25 railcard (I think you should mention this otherwise you're inviting TIL to further ask you if you previously had a railcard and if so why you didn't use it)
- ensuring that I constantly have the correct 16-25 railcard on me
- not travelling when I don't have the financial means to do so. (you don't have to put it in a list like this but as you now have three points to make it might be worth splitting from one sentence)

I really hope that we can settle this matter out of court. I am extremely scared and nervous about this prospect. I would ask that if possible, would I be allowed to pay any outstanding fare, administrative costs for both Chiltern Railways and TIL and any further costs required to prevent this from going to court? I'm just really hoping there's a way to fix this.

I hope to hear from you soon and pray there is something I can do to make this right.

Many thanks,
xxx

I've suggested a few changes above. If you decide to take them on board make sure you delete my comments in italics!

 

[sillyperson]

Thanks all, I sent it... now to sit and wait...

Hi all - one question. If this does go to court, and I get prosecuted under the Railways Act, and I get a criminal record... do you know how long it will be until spent?

Unfortunately my work involves enhanced DBS checks/SC clearance for many jobs, so I know it will probably never 'go' from that one.

 

[Fawkes Cat]

Hi all - one question. If this does go to court, and I get prosecuted under the Railways Act, and I get a criminal record... do you know how long it will be until spent?

Unfortunately my work involves enhanced DBS checks/SC clearance for many jobs, so I know it will probably never 'go' from that one.

A Regulation of the Railways Act conviction will be spent after a year.

 

[Haywain]

If this does go to court, and I get prosecuted under the Railways Act, and I get a criminal record... do you know how long it will be until spent?

Unfortunately my work involves enhanced DBS checks/SC clearance for many jobs, so I know it will probably never 'go' from that one.

If you get convicted, you really don't want an employer - present or future - finding out from a DBS check. You need to tell your employer or a prospective employer at the earliest opportunity, thus proving that you are not trying to hide the fact. For a relatively minor offence this should be less damaging to your employment prospects than withholding the information.

 

[sillyperson]

Hey all, I got a letter back from TIL on Saturday saying that they won't take it to court if I pay a £1000 fine.

 

[AlterEgo]

Hey all, I got a letter back from TIL on Saturday saying that they won't take it to court if I pay a £1000 fine.

Some questions:

1) Do they call it a fine, or are they asking for a settlement out of court?
2) Do they explain where this figure comes from? Is there a breakdown?
3) Is it possible they have evidence of other fare evasion by you? Do they mention any?
4) Could you post the letter please? Redact your personal details, of course.

Lately there has been a rash of threads where a large settlement has been suggested yet the forum never sees evidence of the same. Very large settlement fees, if unwarranted, are concerning and may affect the advice we give to you and others in the future.

 

[sillyperson]

"I have noted your comments in response to our letter and the report of failing to show a valid rail ticket. It is always the traveller's responsibility to pay the correct fare due and to obtain a valid ticket before boarding any train where pre-purchase facilities are available.

After further investigation it appears that you have purchased several invalid tickets during the period dates of January 2019 and August 2021.

When asked to show a valid ticket, it is alleged that you failed to do so in contravention of the rules in force. We see no reason why this matter should not proceed as previously advised. An application for the issue of Summons may now be made. Having said that, we note that there is no previous instance of a similar matter on file in your name and accordingly we are authorised to allow administrative disposal in this case. All of these administration costs being incurred as a result of your failure to abide by the rules in force. If you wish to exercise this option, payment of the total sum is £1,005.70 should be made payable to TIL and sent to this office to clear no later than 21 days from the date of this letter.

If the sum is paid in full by the due date shown, action in this case will be discontinued. We are not able to accept payment by installments."

Some questions:

1) Do they call it a fine, or are they asking for a settlement out of court?
2) Do they explain where this figure comes from? Is there a breakdown?
3) Is it possible they have evidence of other fare evasion by you? Do they mention any?
4) Could you post the letter please? Redact your personal details, of course.

Lately there has been a rash of threads where a large settlement has been suggested yet the forum never sees evidence of the same. Very large settlement fees, if unwarranted, are concerning and may affect the advice we give to you and others in the future.

A settle out of court, seems they might have bumped up the price due to invalid tickets previously (altho I don't have much recollection of this and when I looked through my history couldn't find any... odd, but perhaps I'm just missing them).

 

[WesternLancer]

A settle out of court, seems they might have bumped up the price due to invalid tickets previously (altho I don't have much recollection of this and when I looked through my history couldn't find any... odd, but perhaps I'm just missing them).

Thanks for further information

so they believe you have committed other ticket 'irregularities' in the past. It may have that you do not want to admit that here so this advice is something you can think over of course.

a) If you have bought child rate tickets - for example - when you are not entitled to them (and I find it difficult to believe that you would have done that and not be able to remember doing it but as I say you do not need to answer that suggestion here) - then I think my advice would be to pay the sum demanded - despite it's high level.

b) If you are pretty sure you have not done such things, and for example they have looked at your ticket buying history and have drawn a conclusion that on all those occasions you had invalid tickets, but you think they are wrong - then my advice would be to follow @AlterEgo 's advice and ask them for breakdowns of how they arrived at that sum, but you may need to be able to provide some evidence from yourself that their implication that all those purchases were invalid tickets is not correct - ie some proof or at least a clear list of the journeys and the fares paid for example.

c) It seems to me that the only other option is that you plead guilty (as you have admitted at least one offence) and work out if the penalty the court will demand (+ the impact of a criminal record on you) is lower than £1,000 - others may be able to post sentencing guidelines info that would give an idea of cost. But the train company may seek to prosecute for all the times they believe you have evaded fares and that may rack up a higher penalty from the court - others might have better idea of that than I do.

 

[AlterEgo]

It sounds like they made a request to Trainline or other retailers and found you'd purchased child tickets in the past, or similar offences. Most people do not commit only one offence before being caught unless they are very unfortunate.

Personally, I am confident I have never committed a ticketing offence in the last few years and can vividly remember the one time I lost my Travelcard and had to go to Stonebridge Park to exit the Tube at a barrier-less station to avoid detection.

"Well I have no recollection if I bought child tickets, or short tickets, or not" isn't really a hard rebuttal of the company's allegation so I advise you to think hard about whether that figure is correct, and if you are sure you did only commit one offence, to consider whether that settlement is fair.

 

[NARobertson]

The letter you have received seems a bit inconsistent in that it says that you have had invalid tickets several times in the past but at the same time that you have not come to their attention in the past. Could these other cases have been with another railway company?

It is possible that in your case it might be cheaper to go to court provided you do not already have a criminal record. It might be useful to do an Internet search for fines issued recently for cases such as this. For instance, there was a report in the 3 September 2021 issue of the Rail Business Daily that 1032 fare dodgers taken to court over the summer by Greater Anglia had fines and court costs imposed on them of £325000. That amounts to an average of £315 each. However, average costs could be misleading because in this country fines are often linked to a person's income. So, whether you are well or poorly paid would also need to be factored in. Another consideration is that a Court would likely be willing to accept payment of a fine in installments if you do not have the money to pay a fine all at once, unlike this offer from the railways. However, if you can easily afford paying a £1000 now it would save further unpleasantness and the only long term consequence would be that you would be £1000 poorer.

 

[Haywain]

The letter you have received seems a bit inconsistent in that it says that you have had invalid tickets several times in the past but at the same time that you have not come to their attention in the past.

There is nothing inconsistent in saying 'we believe several instances of buying and using child/short tickets have occurred' and 'we note that you haven't been caught doing this previously'.

 

[furlong]

Ask for a breakdown of the amount. They should have provided you with that without asking.

If you are agreeing an out of court settlement it is essential that the boundary of that agreement is precisely defined so that if, in future, a similar historic accusation was made against you, it would be easy to determine whether or not it was already covered by this agreement. For example, does this agreement cover all incidents between those dates with any railway company? Or does it only cover a specific list of incidents or a specific type of incident (e.g. based on the way the ticket was purchased or the train company involved)? Bear in mind that they cannot easily prosecute anything more than 6 months ago, but they may still be able to claim compensation in a civil court (up to 6 years).

Last thing you would want to do is pay this large sum of money, and then get another letter a month later saying they've found some more incidents and now want you to pay more!

 

[Haywain]

For example, does this agreement cover all incidents between those dates with any railway company?

I would advise against asking such a question as it would clearly suggest that if they dig they will find much more whether there is more to be found or not.

 

[Fawkes Cat]

Essentially, you now need to decide what matters to you most - your guaranteed good reputation, or your finances.

If you pay the £1,005.70, then that's the end of the matter. No more continuing stress, nothing on your DBS. But you will have paid out more than a grand.

If you don't pay the offered settlement, then the case will (in my view certainly, although others might think otherwise) end in court. On what you have told us, you will be convicted and will have to pay a fine of uncertain amount, court and prosecution costs and compensation of an uncertain amount (it could be as little as the one journey that kicked all this off or it could include other journeys if the railway challenge for them). This could be more or less than the £1005.70 - and depending on whether it was prosecuted under the railway byelaws or the Regulation of Railways Act it could appear on a DBS.

Personally, I much prefer certainty so would choose to pay the money now. You have only just started back into work so I imagine money will be tight but it may make sense to borrow it from a (legitimate) source and have the (comparatively) small stress of dealing with an affordable debt over the stress of what might happen at court.

 

[furlong]

If you pay the £1,005.70, then that's the end of the matter.

But based on that letter, it might well not be the end of the matter as I explained. That sort of settlement offer seems quite unsatisfactory without further clarification or negotiation, perhaps with the help of a solicitor. It needs to be crystal clear what the settlement covers - e.g. all potential claims the railway might have - so that no railway company can come back later asking for more.

 

[Brissle Girl]

But based on that letter, it might well not be the end of the matter as I explained. That sort of settlement offer seems quite unsatisfactory without further clarification or negotiation, perhaps with the help of a solicitor. It needs to be crystal clear what the settlement covers - e.g. all potential claims the railway might have - so that no railway company can come back later asking for more.

Could they actually give such a guarantee on behalf of other railway companies? I agree though that there is possibly a risk that the information is shared with any other TOCs, which then choose to pursue separate investigations, either in respect of the journeys identified and taken into account in setting the level of settlement, or in others that they find.

Of course, this could be hypothetical if the OP is very confident that they have only defrauded the one company and only over the period mentioned in the settlement offer.

 

[furlong]

Could they actually give such a guarantee on behalf of other railway companies?

Yes. (E.g. through agreements they might have made with them or qualified by the evidence they've taken into account and allowing reassessment if new evidence is found later.)

But my point is that if you're going to pay that amount of money you ought to know just what you are getting in return and I doubt that an agreement open to future misinterpretation would be in either side's interest.

 

[island]

Ask for a breakdown of the amount. They should have provided you with that without asking.

They are under no obligation to provide any breakdown or negotiate the amount, and given that the 6 month deadline is rapidly approaching any request for one is more likely to be met with a summons than a substantive reply.

 

[furlong]

They are under no obligation to provide any breakdown or negotiate the amount, and given that the 6 month deadline is rapidly approaching any request for one is more likely to be met with a summons than a substantive reply.

They seem to be treating it as a criminal matter and so a certain standard of impartiality and disclosure is necessary and any settlement should only recoup actual losses and reasonable direct investigative costs. But anyway it would be in their own interest to be up-front about the evidence they've considered, so that they can unarguably keep open the "second bite of the cherry" option should significant new evidence that was not taken into account by the settlement emerge at a later date.

 

[island]

They seem to be treating it as a criminal matter and so a certain standard of impartiality and disclosure is necessary and any settlement should only recoup actual losses and reasonable direct investigative costs. But anyway it would be in their own interest to be up-front about the evidence they've considered, so that they can unarguably keep open the "second bite of the cherry" option should significant new evidence that was not taken into account by the settlement emerge at a later date.

Whilst you're welcome to your opinion of how the process ought to work, I would urge you when giving an opinion, such as the above opinion of how settlements should be calculated, that you make it clear it is an opinion rather than a rule which the railway must follow. The use of "should" without further qualification may mislead the OP and others.

 

[Islineclear3_1]

After further investigation it appears that you have purchased several invalid tickets during the period dates of January 2019 and August 2021.

Based on this alone, over a 19-month period, how many invalid tickets did you buy/possess?

I don't expect you to remember but the train company may have exact numbers.

If the £1,005.70 fine makes all of this go away, hassle-free then only you can really decide what the best course of action is

 

[ainsworth74]

I've tided this thread up as it was getting a bit off-topic. As a reminder we do ask that posts made in this section, particularly on threads like this where possible legal proceedings are at play, that posters focus on providing accurate, to the best of their knowledge, advice. It may be wise for anyone new to the section to spend some time reading others contributions before diving into the threads and also considering reading the Legal and Disputes sections of the Ticketing Guide (note that the Ticketing Guide is currently unmaintained but these sections still contain relevant information for those seeking a bit of background understanding).

If there is a disagreement about what advice is correct, if someone feels that the process is unfair and should be changed, or any similar sort of posts which are not directly aimed at giving the OP the advice they need then these should be taken to a new thread. If there's a specific post you wish to reply to but it needs to be in a new thread you can use the "Reply" button (bottom right every post), copy the resulting output that appears in the quick reply box (bottom of every open thread) and then click "Post Thread" in the relevant sub-forum and paste into the new thread box your quoted post.

To the OP @sillyperson I'm leaving this thread locked for now but if you do require any further information or would like to give us an update as to how things go (which is useful for us to pitch our advice in the future!) please feel free to report this post (report button is bottom left of every post) and the Forum Staff can re-open it for you to post any questions or updates.