Feel free to split hairs. Of course, Byelaw breaches are not theft in the true legal sense, allow me a little hyperbole on an internet forum. The Railway is a public service, funded by public money. Whether or not that service is now operated on a for-profit basis is a matter for another discussion, much like the privatisation of Prisons and the Probation Service, is another discussion for another thread.
Failing to pay for that service takes money from the public purse and there needs to be a legal endpoint to the matter. I'm happy to see that as a Byelaw, which has a limited impact for many people's future, though there still needs to be a final sanction to prevent those who won't pay from taking advantage of those who do pay - either through fares or taxes.
Taking the matter to the County Court would reduce the burden of proof from reasonable doubt to balance of probabilities, making it easier for a TOC to secure a conviction, reducing some of the checks and balances in the current system. The redress would only be the costs of the action and the fare avoided - there would be no punitive element and nothing to stop repeat offenders. Collection would then fall to bailiffs appointed by the TOC - is that something you would want to see?
The system as it stands is not perfect, though pretty simple:
1) Buy a ticket as soon as you can or are obliged to
2) If caught out, pay the penalty fare or engage constructively with the TOC
3) Do not bury your head in the sand.
I'd be very surprised to see anyone in court who has followed steps 1-3. In fact, the majority of passengers seem to manage step 1.
It's not even about splitting hairs. I meant the term "theft" in a general way - do you think that failing to use available ticketing facilities because you didn't realise they existed, for instance, is something that justifies being a criminal offence? Does that constitute anything malicious to you?
I would certainly favour more County Court based enforcement. For one, a CCJ is less of an issue to most people than a criminal conviction (even if non-recordable). And if someone does find themselves on the receiving end of a CCJ, they can eliminate it from their record and put the matter behind them by paying it up within the allotted time (usually 30 days or so). No such grace is given to honest individuals convicted under Byelaw 18.
If the TOCs truly used Byelaw 18 only to punish those who "seemed" up to no good, but where it couldn't be proven, I'd have a little more understanding. But that's simply not the case - it is used indiscriminately and in a way it simply wasn't intended to be used, as numerous posts in the Disputes & Prosecutions sections aver. Its previous sole purpose being to allow for the removal of ticketless passengers from the railway, it is only in relatively recent years that it has become a nice little earner, and a stick with which to beat the unwary, for the railways.
Ultimately, I agree that there ought to be sanctions, criminal if necessary, to discourage (fraudulent) fare evasion. But RoRA already exists for that, much as do a number of other laws (e.g. petrol station bilking). Byelaw 18 seeks to criminalise what is in almost any other industry or facet of life a
civil matter between the two parties. There is no reason it can't be decriminalised if it doesn't reach the standards of RoRA, and instead dealt with by means of a predictable and fairer Penalty Fare, for instance.
I won't even go there about taxes and the like, as that has no relevance to the matter at hand. In terms of checks and balances, at least in the County Court there is a trained Judge (often a former solicitor/barrister), as opposed to some lay Magistrates in the Magistrates'. There is no reason the current system of Penalty Fares appeals can't interlace with the County Court system of recovery of unpaid Penalty Fares - and in fact, the current Regulations make (a currently pointless) provision for that. Penalty Fares are certainly punitive, or if they are not deemed sufficiently punitive then they can of course be increased.
The fact that
most passengers manage step 1 is great. But then again,
most passengers board at stations where the ticketing facilities are obvious, and don't require anything other than an ordinary A to B single or return. However, not all passengers come into that category. At many smaller stations ticketing facilities can be very non-obvious, or even if obvious, they may be inaccessible due to arrangements for crossing the line, or there may be a long queue. Alternatively they may not accept the payment method the passenger wants to use, or they may not sell the ticket the passenger is after. There are so many ways in which there might, for all practical purposes, be no ticketing facilities. It is OK for most, but there are a number of people who are entirely in the right (morally and/or legally) and yet who find their name smeared by an article such as the originally linked one. That simply isn't acceptable, and it wouldn't happen if it were all a civil matter.
