Railcard expired 1 week ago - Advice for appealing fine

[Forest29]

Looking for advice on whether it's worth appealing a fine. I travelled from Bishops Stortford to Tottenham Hale on Greater Anglia service this morning at 8th Jan 2025 and was caught by ticket inspectors at the gate at Tottenham Hale. I realised in the queue to check tickets that my railcard had expired on 30th Dec 2024. It was a genuine mistake but the officers obviously pulled me to the side. I had also travelled on Monday 6th Jan without a railcard and the officer saw this in my app. I was quite upset but after discussion I paid the £50 fine on the spot + £17 for a new ticket, they said I can appeal the fine on appealservice.co.uk. My questions are:

1. Is it worth me appealing the £50 fine? It was a genuine mistake and the railcard expired 1 week ago, but not sure this is enough to warrant an appeal.
2. Will Greater Anglia investigate me for the other journey in my app? The officers didn't mention anything about this and they did not take my name or any other details, all I have is the reference number on my fine receipt. I'm just worried now after reading through other threads.

Thanks!

 

[Hadders]

Welcome to the forum!

There's nothing to stop you from appealing, the worst they can say is no but unfortunately I wouldn't expect the appeal to succeed. However inadvertent it was, your railcard was out of date and a Penalty Fare is an appropriate way to deal with this sort of thing.

It is possible that Greater Anglia will search your online ticket purchasing history and contact you about the other journey you made when the railcard was expired. They won't prosecute you for it but they will try and seek recompsense for it.

Let us know if Greater Anglia do contact you and we can advise on how to reply.

 

[jfollows]

If you want to post a suitably redacted copy of what you received then people here can check it, in case there’s an error which invalidates it, but generally a Penalty Fare (which I think you received, not a fine) is a simple way of handling this and avoids potential prosecution which would be worse.

In a similar way to speeding when driving, intent or mistake doesn’t really come into this, you either had a valid ticket or you didn’t.

 

[Forest29]

Thank you, these are the documents I have. I'm less concerned about wanting to appeal the fine, now more worried about GA investigating the other journey and what I will have to pay for that. If they did not take any details from me I wonder if this is unlikely?

 

[Snow1964]

Did you pay the £50 + 17 fare straight away
EDIT just realised you did

Did they take any details, if not because you paid on the spot, then very remote chance of following up for other journey.

If they did take details, and you paid later, that will close the case when you were caught, but unclear if they will follow up previous journey (buying a ticket isn't an offence, travelling without valid ticket is). They would need to dig out evidence you actually used the ticket.

As you have paid and presumably learnt your lesson, might be deemed too much trouble to prove you used previous ticket, especially if they caught lots of others and they are better cases to follow up.

 

[RailsNetwork]

As you paid the penalty fare notice for that journey there and then, I'd say it's somewhat safe to assume that's the end of it.

Although there are means of getting your details without asking you for them (i.e. through transaction/ticket IDs) it's usually common practice for employees to explicitly ask you for them and/or inform you that your details are being passed on.

 

[Forest29]

Thanks so much all for your replies, I feel reassured that hopefully this is the case closed now. A lesson learned!!

 

[JordR]

The standard text on this penalty fare says it was issued in accordance with the Railways (Penalty Fares) (Amendment) Regulations 2022, which isn't the case as the only thing those regulations do is make amendments to the Railways (Penalty Fares) Regulations 2018 - there are no standalone regulations.

This presumably isn't fatal to the notice being enforceable?

 

[Hadders]

As you paid the penalty fare notice for that journey there and then, I'd say it's somewhat safe to assume that's the end of it.

That's correct. No further action can be taken in respect of the journey you made when the OP was caught.

Although there are means of getting your details without asking you for them (i.e. through transaction/ticket IDs) it's usually common practice for employees to explicitly ask you for them and/or inform you that your details are being passed on.

I'm afraid this isn't the case. The reality is Greater Anglia are well known for contacting people haveing obtained their details from ticket scan data without explicitly tellling you that detauils would be passed on.

 

[furlong]

The standard text on this penalty fare says it was issued in accordance with the Railways (Penalty Fares) (Amendment) Regulations 2022, which isn't the case as the only thing those regulations do is make amendments to the Railways (Penalty Fares) Regulations 2018 - there are no standalone regulations.

This presumably isn't fatal to the notice being enforceable?

It's worth a try.

It also states it is 'NOT VALID FOR TRAVEL' which breaches the requirement that it must authorise you to complete the specified journey.

 

[methecooldude]

It's worth a try.

It also states it is 'NOT VALID FOR TRAVEL' which breaches the requirement that it must authorise you to complete the specified journey.

But it also states that it does authorise you to complete your journey. Strange contradiction