Rather large out of court settlement

[yorksrob]

Would they? The prosecutions thread on this forum is full of people who have been caught dodging a fare and been offered to pay their way out of it without going to court.

Although this has been a persistent case, it is the first time he has been caught, which reflects a real lapse on behalf of the railway system.

He is not, therefore, considered a repeat offender and so ignoring the volume of the fine, would be unlikely to be a target for legal action unless he did not make a settlement.

Hardly. Most of the cases that turn up on here are people caught on the off chance. If the TOC's discovered some ordinary Joe, and had reason to believe that they'd been defrauding them for five years, they'd be itching to make an example of them.

 

[34D]

Wow - but let's wait for next weeks' story - "city hedge fund manager successfully recovers £43,550 from railway company"

 

[soil]

Completely unverifiable story.

Did it happen?

Maybe some aspects of it.

As reported in the media?

Almost certainly not.

 

[danbushell]

Paying an out of court settlement presumably meant he avoided a criminal record and possibly loss of job too.
How long before a newspaper 'names and shames' him??

 

[user15681]

There can't be that many hedge fund managers in Stonegate...

 

[jon0844]

Will the media care who this person is? Most people probably think the railway is fair game, and would rank a financial fraudster above a private train company!

I'd have hoped TfL would work with TOCs and notify them of what would be quite obviously a fraud, based on someone only tapping in or out and always incurring a maximum fare - and never seeking to have it reversed. Unless he occasionally did that too, and got money back on his Oyster!

I thought this was one way they investigate fraud on the tube, but obviously SET wouldn't know without being told or tipped off.

 

[jp4712]

I'm fairly sure the tabloid media would've been out in force at Stonegate this morning, looking for a red-faced shifty individual or asking if commuters knew the person concerned. If there's one thing the red-tops like more than "lazy/unskilled/overpaid" rail drivers, it's fraudulent bankers.

Paul

 

[Tetchytyke]

Hardly. Most of the cases that turn up on here are people caught on the off chance. If the TOC's discovered some ordinary Joe, and had reason to believe that they'd been defrauding them for five years, they'd be itching to make an example of them.

It depends. Whilst he hasn't been named publicly, the recovery of £43,000 sends a signal that fare evaders will be caught and will be hit in the pocket.

I'm not convinced that taking him to court and prosecuting him would have made sense financially, and the bottom line is the bottom line.

 

[soil]

I'm fairly sure the tabloid media would've been out in force at Stonegate this morning, looking for a red-faced shifty individual or asking if commuters knew the person concerned. If there's one thing the red-tops like more than "lazy/unskilled/overpaid" rail drivers, it's fraudulent bankers.

Paul

Seems like if this story is true he would have run it past a lawyer, and non-disclosure would have been a key part of the settlement. Which is rather compromised by the description of him as a hedge fund manager from Stonegate.

 

[Buttsy]

Further comment on BBC website: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-27019782

A rail union has claimed a hedge fund manager was able to "buy silence" after he repaid £42,550 in unpaid fares to Southeastern - but remained anonymous and avoided court action.

The TSSA claimed it demonstrated one law for the rich and one for the poor.

Rail operator Southeastern has defended the out-of-court settlement as the quickest way to recover the fares.

But on Twitter, some people argued the man avoided prosecution because he could afford to repay the money.

Manuel Cortes, leader of the TSSA, said: "There seems to be one law for the rich and one law for the poor when it comes to criminal prosecution.

"The rich seem to be able to walk away and claim secrecy while the poor get hauled up in front of the local magistrates court and publicly ridiculed.

"This guy can buy silence, but that isn't offered to most people who are caught fare dodging."

'Exploited loophole'

On Twitter, blogger Martin Shovel wrote: "Biggest rail fare dodger in history avoids prosecution because he's rich enough to pay back what he owed #OneLaw"

And Hugh Knowles tweeted: "Biggest rail fare dodger in UK? A loaded hedge fund manager. Says it all really."

But Southeastern said out-of-court settlements were a familiar part of the UK legal system.

In a statement, the rail company said: "In this case, this option has allowed us to recover the sum owed to us very quickly without incurring the additional costs or uncertainty associated with pursuing the matter through the courts."

On Sunday, it emerged the unnamed city executive was believed to have dodged his fares by exploiting a loophole which meant he only paid a third of the journey cost.

The man, from Stonegate, had an Oyster Travelcard and regularly travelled to and from London.

Southeastern said he commuted from Stonegate to London Bridge, where he caught another train to Cannon Street.

His Oyster was only used at Cannon Street so he paid a maximum £7.20 fare.

It is thought he dodged fares for five years.

 

[tbtc]

I wonder whether sales of valid tickets have gone up this morning, with some nervous people suddenly purchasing the full fare ticket (that they've previously dodged)?

Hardly. Most of the cases that turn up on here are people caught on the off chance. If the TOC's discovered some ordinary Joe, and had reason to believe that they'd been defrauding them for five years, they'd be itching to make an example of them.

Take this guy to court and you'd have to prove that he's been using the train daily for five years, you'd have to build a case strong enough to satisfy a judge - whilst this person may claim something different.

For a simple case like finding someone on a train once without a valid ticket, you could fine them for that one offence. For finding someone who hasn't bought a (SouthEastern) ticket for five years, you'll need a lot more evidence.

Why would you spend a lot of time/money building a case, hope that the judge backs you, with a very large chance of getting a lower amount of money back, when you can take the £43,000?

And, as we know, TOCs like Northern are okay with people paying them £80 plus the cost of journeys (to close a case) - its not like every working class fare dodger gets hauled in front of a judge whilst this richer one is the only fare dodger allowed to walk away with the cost of his tickets plus a fine.

Will the media care who this person is? Most people probably think the railway is fair game, and would rank a financial fraudster above a private train company!

You are (sadly) right. The reaction on newspaper websites (and Facebook etc) seems to be quite in favour of this guy (against the big bad train companies).

Okay, a lot of the reporting is inaccurate (e.g. the Guardian's claim that "Commuter exploited Oyster card loophole, paying only £7.20 for travel between East Sussex and London Bridge over five years" - as if this was all that he paid for five years of travel), and a lot of people seem to take the reporters use of "loophole" to mean that this was a valid means of travel, just like split ticketing.

Depressing to find that a TOC is less popular than a fraudulant Banker, admittedly!

I'd have hoped TfL would work with TOCs and notify them of what would be quite obviously a fraud, based on someone only tapping in or out and always incurring a maximum fare - and never seeking to have it reversed

It'll be interesting to see what else gets shaken out from this - the Oyster people may well be interested in tracking similar Oyster accounts that have suspicious travel patterns.

Trouble is that there are two organisations involved here (the TOC and the TfL) - so there needs to be some incentive for them to work together to tackle such cases (e.g. at the moment if TfL are getting their £7.20 a day then would they have much incentive to look into it any further?).

(it'd have still been two separate "territories" under BR, I guess, I'm not using this as a nationalisation argument)

Would they? The prosecutions thread on this forum is full of people who have been caught dodging a fare and been offered to pay their way out of it without going to court.

Although this has been a persistent case, it is the first time he has been caught, which reflects a real lapse on behalf of the railway system.

He is not, therefore, considered a repeat offender and so ignoring the volume of the fine, would be unlikely to be a target for legal action unless he did not make a settlement.

Agreed

 

[LateThanNever]

Seems like if this story is true he would have run it past a lawyer, and non-disclosure would have been a key part of the settlement. Which is rather compromised by the description of him as a hedge fund manager from Stonegate.

Not at all sure you can make any settlement conditional on non disclosure. If you are disclosed you can hardly ask for your money back can you? It's just a 'gentleman's agreement' which strictly cannot be enforced.

 

[island]

Not at all sure you can make any settlement conditional on non disclosure. If you are disclosed you can hardly ask for your money back can you? It's just a 'gentleman's agreement' which strictly cannot be enforced.

Of course you can.

 

[jon0844]

Most people aren't probably aware that just about anyone can buy their way out of a prosecution with an out of court settlement than many TOCs are now pushing. FCC and Northern certainly want the money, not a conviction.

Or that the TOC gets more money this way, which means it has - in theory - more money to reinvest.

But it hardly surprises me that this slant has been taken.

 

[Tetchytyke]

I was arguing about this on the Guardian website. The annual season ticket from Stonegate to London Terminals is about £4500 a year, which means he's evaded about £22,750 in fares over five years, not taking into account the many maximum fares he did pay.

SouthEastern have made over twenty grand by not prosecuting him. They'd never have got that much money in court.

 

[radamfi]

Here it looks like the guy simply didn't like the hassle of queuing up for tickets. If PAYG Oyster went that far into Kent, he might have touched in and out properly.

 

[Deerfold]

Here it looks like the guy simply didn't like the hassle of queuing up for tickets. If PAYG Oyster went that far into Kent, he might have touched in and out properly.

I got someone really slow when I bought my annual season ticket (which is an unusual one) and it took 25 minutes including the time in the queue.

I might have to get a reprint or two during the year which will be quicker as my ticket is already on the system.

I'd still expect less than an hour of my time for a year of travelling.

 

[soil]

It's quite interesting from the perspective that they used his purchase of a new season ticket after a five year gap to try and tie him to that length of settlement. Bit of a top tip for those in this situation in the future TBH, to avoid leaving traces of that kind. Had he just bought cash tickets instead he might have got away with a couple of hundred quid.

 

[user15681]

Full statement from Southeastern, that the news articles were only quoting some of.

We take the issue of fare evasion very seriously and are proactively taking the battle to people who try to avoid paying their way. We’ve quadrupled the number of revenue protection officers that are out on our network tackling this offence since our franchise started in 2006 and we now have a 150-strong team. Conductors on our trains carry out checks during journeys, our revenue inspectors travel across the network making checks and enforcing penalty fares, ticket barriers at our main London terminals are manned, and we’ve also installed self-service ticket machines at most of our stations to make it easier for passengers to buy tickets before travelling.

We recognise that this issue is important to customers who pay their way and expect the system to treat them with fairness by acting against people who don’t buy tickets. This case highlights the cost of fare evasion to the industry and the scale of the penalties that individuals face when caught. We hope it will act as a deterrent, particularly given that the sum involved is far above the average earnings of most of the fare-paying public.

 

[JB_B]

...We hope it will act as a deterrent, particularly given that the sum involved is far above the average earnings of most of the fare-paying public.

That could be read as "you (ordinary people) can't afford to buy your way out of trouble - so YOU'D better watch out."

I understand that we don't have perfect information on this case but at the very least this look likes poor public relations on SE's part.

I had a bit more sympathy with them in their last PR debacle - (You hate our trains because you hate your job) - because I suspect there might be a bit of truth in that.

 

[thebigcheese]

Not at all sure you can make any settlement conditional on non disclosure. If you are disclosed you can hardly ask for your money back can you? It's just a 'gentleman's agreement' which strictly cannot be enforced.

You reminded me of this story from America about a girl who broke her fathers NDA and subsequently had to pay it back.

Completely different legal system over there of course but it could happen here now.

Surely he must have had his ticket checked on the train...unless the credibility of a man in a suit who "had left his ticket at home" managed to blag himself a free ride?

 

[Tetchytyke]

NDAs are binding in the UK too, but it is contractual, so he'd have to sue for his money back.

I doubt there was an NDA, but the agreement will surely have been to "conclude the issue". Splattering his name over the internet would not be concluding the matter.

 

[Tim R-T-C]

Of course if the TOC released his name he could always have a shot at a slander case - since they have not actually proven he was guilty and they could end up with the legal case they tried to avoid anyway.

 

[Clip]

I wonder whether sales of valid tickets have gone up this morning, with some nervous people suddenly purchasing the full fare ticket (that they've previously dodged)?

Or a rise in people in seeing how easy it has been to get away with it on SET and may try the same?

Theyve done right in this case - getting money back from a case like this is certainly better for the TOC than a prosecution.

It is a massive amount of money but stuff like this has been going on for years since the introduction of Oyster. Ive mentioned before some large amounts being recovered at a previous TOC.

 

[marks87]

Am I the only one cynical enough to think this is an elaborate PR exercise for SE, as a way of scaring people into paying their fares? There seems to be an awful lot of holes in the story as reported.

 

[Tim R-T-C]

Am I the only one cynical enough to think this is an elaborate PR exercise for SE, as a way of scaring people into paying their fares? There seems to be an awful lot of holes in the story as reported.

Or more likely they don't want to give the full details of how they tracked and caught the perp, or really how he got away with it, in case others try and copy.

 

[anme]

If we take this story at face value (*) it seems to me to support the proposal in another thread to decriminalize ticket offences. If someone can get away with this level of abuse of the system without a criminal record, it seems wrong that others are given one for far lesser offences. The TOC seems rather in favour too, based on their statements about recovering money.

(*) I understand and share some of the doubts expressed by others about this case.

 

[Deerfold]

It is a massive amount of money but stuff like this has been going on for years since the introduction of Oyster. Ive mentioned before some large amounts being recovered at a previous TOC.

And before Oyster - I'm sure there'd be people buying a London Bridge to (say) St Pancras season ticket which would get them through the gates at LBG.

 

[LateThanNever]

If we take this story at face value (*) it seems to me to support the proposal in another thread to decriminalize ticket offences. If someone can get away with this level of abuse of the system without a criminal record, it seems wrong that others are given one for far lesser offences. The TOC seems rather in favour too, based on their statements about recovering money.

Agreed. It is completely wrong. Have just heard an interview on R4 between a Telegraph journalist and the deputy Gen Sec of the RMT and to my surprise I agree wholeheartedly with the RMT who said if the railway company bosses were less preoccupied with paying themselves a million quid and more with keeping ticket offices open, fare evasion would be less common. The bloke from the Telegraph was of the opinion that, when caught, anyone and everyone had the opportunity to pay what they owed rather than be taken to court!!
Pity Bob Crow cannot be resurrected for special occasions like this...

 

[Tim R-T-C]

...I agree wholeheartedly with the RMT who said if the railway company bosses were less preoccupied with paying themselves a million quid and more with keeping ticket offices open, fare evasion would be less common.

Although in this case there is a ticket office there, the passenger just chose not to use it.