Bad publicity for "the railway"...

[AndrewE]

Pregnant, forced to sit on a train floor – then unjustly fined for fare dodging

A British teacher ended up being found guilty in court – because she hadn’t printed out the ticket she bought online

www.theguardian.com

Pregnant, forced to sit on a train floor – then unjustly fined for fare dodging​

A British teacher ended up being found guilty in court – because she hadn’t printed out the ticket she bought online

Daisy Mumba didn’t think her train journey from Reading to Sheffield could get any worse. Seven months pregnant and unable to get to the seat she had booked because of the number of people onboard, she had to sit on the floor, constantly getting up and down to let other passengers past.

But worse it was to get. A seemingly minor error to do with printing out her ticket prompted a series of calamitous events and left her with a conviction for not having a valid ticket, even though she had spent £70 on one before the journey.
Her experience is a salutary lesson for anyone who relies too much on the advances of technology, and a reminder that not all parts of the transport system operate seamlessly in the digital age.
...

When a ticket inspector arrived to check her ticket, Mumba showed her what she thought was her ticket on the Trainline app but was told it was not valid as she needed to have it printed out. “I showed her my ticket on the app and she told me it wasn’t valid. I have used the app for over a decade and have never been asked to do this,” says Mumba.

She went to the ticket office in Sheffield and got it printed out, as she says she was instructed to do, and thought little more of it.
That was until she got a court notification for boarding a train without a valid ticket.
“I filled out the attached paperwork and pled not guilty, attaching a photo of the physical ticket, a screenshot of the online ticket via the Trainline app and a screenshot of the purchase on my HSBC bank statement,” she says.

The letter with the evidence never got to court – she presumes it must have got lost in transit – and Mumba was found guilty in her absence, with the court recording a conviction and fining her £600.
...
After the Observer’s intervention, CrossCountry said it would tell the court, at the next hearing, that the issue can be dismissed – which should overturn her conviction and fine. “Though we’re now working with our prosecutors to withdraw Ms Mumba’s case, her story highlights how important it is for those in similar situations to engage with prosecutors to prevent the significant personal stress of a court summons, and to avoid wasting the limited time of the courts,” said the company.

Maybe all technically justified, but definitely not good PR!
How many people don't get a newspaper's support and just end up hating the railway?

 

[Haywain]

Pregnant, forced to sit on a train floor – then unjustly fined for fare dodging

A British teacher ended up being found guilty in court – because she hadn’t printed out the ticket she bought online

www.theguardian.com

Maybe all technically justified, but definitely not good PR!
How many people don't get a newspaper's support and just end up hating the railway?

How many people just hope the matter goes away? We know full well that it is very rare for the first communication to be "a court notification", so something earlier is likely to have been ignored. In the same way the booking confirmation about collecting the tickets will have been ignored.

 

[AlterEgo]

Not a great advert for the teaching profession either!

 

[spotify95]

If the railway want people to actually use the railway, rather than drive, they should offer a suitable level of service.
The person in question paid for their ticket do owed the train company zero. Plus she wasn't able to get to her seat and had to sit on the floor - not what I would call satisfactory especially for someone who was pregnant at the time.
Personally the customer should have been owed a small amount of compensation - not convicted at Northampton Magistrates!!!

 

[Haywain]

The person in question paid for their ticket do owed the train company zero.

But was unable to demonstrate that at the time that the law requires.

 

[Adam Williams]

(Part of) the problem now is that people are so used to E-Tickets, they increasingly often don't expect anything except E-Tickets.

Clearly the customer should've really paid more attention during the booking flow, however I think it'd be interesting to discuss:

• How far should retailers go with warnings in this area now that E-Tickets are in the high-eighty %s? Here's one experiment that never got rolled out further than one site. It must manually be dismissed before proceeding through checkout. Is it a help or a hindrance?

• TOCs like to bring up the "Well if you don't print them out then they can be refunded" argument. I don't think it would be unreasonable to ask why it's not universally possible across the board for ToD bookings to be printed on-board trains. Many TIS suppliers offer it with their mTIS solutions. I don't see a good reason not to pursue this and perhaps give customers an entitlement to it once per year (in the same way as we have the forgotten Railcard policy).

I think in this case the ticket in question is likely to have been one with the cross-London/Maltese cross flag set, e.g. https://www.brfares.com/!faredetail?orig=RDG&dest=SHF&grpo=0403&ldn=1&tkt=SSS - which will be why it was ToD only. Should we be talking about exceptions to the RCS rules such that cross-London tickets can be retailed as E-Tix if the customer is not actually crossing London (as in this article?) or should we be "pessimistic" and assume they will always want to be able to exercise that cross-London validity, even if they've selected an itinerary that doesn't require it?

RCS=>Retail Control Service, controls which tickets can be E-Ticketed and which cannot
mTIS => Mobile ticket issuing system
TOCs => Train operating companies
ToD => Ticket on departure, paper tickets collected at a ticket vending machine prior to travel

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 10 Mar 2025 ==

How many people just hope the matter goes away? We know full well that it is very rare for the first communication to be "a court notification", so something earlier is likely to have been ignored. In the same way the booking confirmation about collecting the tickets will have been ignored.

Does beg the question though: Why bother engaging and paying hundreds of pounds for a settlement to avoid a court case when you can leave it to happen, call up the press with a topical story that people will view sympathetically and get the whole thing dropped?

 

[Richardr]

Seven months pregnant and no one gave up their seat for her?

 

[tram21]

Seven months pregnant and no one gave up their seat for her?

Any train I've been on the majority have been willing to give seats up to elderly/pregnant etc. I know I would be...

 

[nanstallon]

Prosecutions should be to deal with dishonest folk, not to punish someone who has paid the fare for a technicality.

 

[Turtle]

Not a great advert for the teaching profession either!

In what way? Please specify.

 

[AlterEgo]

In what way? Please specify.

I’d probably expect a teacher not to let their personal admin slide to the level of ignoring multiple pieces of correspondence and only actioning the matter (and not properly, regrettably, by pleading not guilty when they were unquestionably guilty of the offence) once they’d been sent court paperwork. There would have been probably two letters sent before a summons or SJPN was sent out.

I’m very critical of train companies for taking people to court for this sort of matter but I’d also expect an educated person in a regulated profession to take this sort of thing by the horns and not let it get as far as it did, to be honest.

If the teacher came on here and told us the story at the stage where they got written up or received a letter I think we’d probably give the same advice - you need to action this now, and properly, and there are consequences if you don’t. Don’t think it’s a very controversial opinion to be honest.

 

[HullRailMan]

In what way? Please specify.

Well, she presumably failed to read and understand the booking T&C’s and confirmation email before travelling (and likely paid unnecessary booking fees too). She then presumably failed to read and deal with correspondence before it went to court. Then, after all this, trotted off to The Guardian (aka the teachers bible) to play the victim card.

 

[Harpo]

Any train I've been on the majority have been willing to give seats up to elderly/pregnant etc. I know I would be...

Having offered my seat to a lady I thought might be pregnant only to get shouted at (‘I’m not f…..g pregnant!’) I’m certainly cautious.

 

[SuspectUsual]

Well, she presumably failed to read and understand the booking T&C’s and confirmation email before travelling (and likely paid unnecessary booking fees too). She then presumably failed to read and deal with correspondence before it went to court. Then, after all this, trotted off to The Guardian (aka the teachers bible) to play the victim card.

I do think there are oddities in her version of events, but some might be down to the inevitably piss poor sensationalist journalism.

In addition to the above it seems odd she got her ticket in Sheffield, thought nothing more more of it, but miraculously still had the ticket months later when things went wrong.

The one thing I’d point out in her defence is that if she was seven months pregnant when it happened, she’d have a newborn to contend with now

 

[WelshBluebird]

How far should retailers go with warnings in this area now that E-Tickets are in the high-eighty %s? Here's one experiment that never got rolled out further than one site. It must manually be dismissed before proceeding through checkout. Is it a help or a hindrance?

I think such a way of doing it would be too obnoxious and annoying for some, and those who you really do want to actually read and understand it would just click the button to dismiss anyway (and then still claim they weren't told).

 

[fandroid]

It's a worthy story for the press. Crosscountry journeys can be a nightmare, and they ought to be handing out 50% refunds to anyone suffering the gross overcrowding that's quite common. Perhaps that would be a more rewarding job for the ticket inspector!

The answer to most paper ticket problems would be for TfL (and Merseyrail) to get off their backsides and to install gates that read Aztec codes, and for E-tickets to be universally issued.

Another possibility could be for the payment for TOD to only be deducted when the tickets are collected.

 

[Twicklatic]

Seven months pregnant and no one gave up their seat for her?

All she had to do is ask. If you don't ask, you don't get.

 

[SuspectUsual]

How far should retailers go with warnings in this area now that E-Tickets are in the high-eighty %s? Here's one experiment that never got rolled out further than one site. It must manually be dismissed before proceeding through checkout. Is it a help or a hindrance?

It can never be fully effective, but is likely to be more effective for the occasional user than the seasoned traveller, as people become conditioned to processes and complete them on autopilot.

Anyone who worked in an office in the 80s and 90s will remember the process to format a floppy disk:

Format A: [return]

Are you sure Y/N?

Y [return]

Countless people formatted disks they didn’t mean to and lost data, or had a brainfart and typed format C:

If the are you sure question had been followed by are you really sure, people would just blindly type format A: return Y return Y return

 

[Discuss223]

Pregnant, forced to sit on a train floor – then unjustly fined for fare dodging

A British teacher ended up being found guilty in court – because she hadn’t printed out the ticket she bought online

www.theguardian.com

Maybe all technically justified, but definitely not good PR!
How many people don't get a newspaper's support and just end up hating the railway?

Being pregnant does not devoid ones' self of responsibilities and obligations to have a valid ticket with them when travelling.

Print at home tickets are only valid if actually printed.


Reading is also gatelined, I wonder how she got on to the platform in the first place.

 

[methecooldude]

• How far should retailers go with warnings in this area now that E-Tickets are in the high-eighty %s? Here's one experiment that never got rolled out further than one site. It must manually be dismissed before proceeding through checkout. Is it a help or a hindrance?

Trainline, for all its faults, does clearly state under 'How to get you ticket' that it's Collect at Station... the problem is people scroll right pass it to the pay button... now, should there be a tick box before you can pay that you understand you must collect the ticket, yes... there should, but much like 'T&C' boxes, people will just tick it without reading.

I don't think it would be unreasonable to ask why it's not universally possible across the board for ToD bookings to be printed on-board trains.

Because TfL, they don't have barcode scanners, so on-board crews using paper roll tickets (such as ours) cannot print Cross-London/Zone tickets (heck, we can't sell them either (well, we *can*, as a ToD ironically)), which is pretty much the only reason it would issue a ToD. If it's not one of those and someone just pressed the wrong button, then we can print them on-board. As I understand it, some retailers will auto-refund the ticket if its not collected in X days.

 

[Snow1964]

There is another part to this, if she had bought a ticket, and had a reservation (even if not printed out), what sort of RPI fines a 7 month pregnant person, and leaves them on the floor, rather than asking the Train manager to take her to the seat with the reservation.

Something is seriously wrong with empathy levels of the crew here.

 

[Discuss223]

what sort of RPI fines a 7 month pregnant person

She wasn't "fined" by the RPO, she was interviewed under caution and a report was made for prosecution.

It was the court who fined her.

What sort of person travels on a train without being in possession of a valid ticket?

 

[Krokodil]

How did she enter without having first printed a ticket? Slough is barriered, and when I used to live there the hours were pretty long.

Is there any news of when the cross-London ticketing issue will be resolved? There was talk of TfL planning to install barcode readers at selected interchanges, is this going ahead?

 

[Tetragon213]

It's a worthy story for the press. Crosscountry journeys can be a nightmare, and they ought to be handing out 50% refunds to anyone suffering the gross overcrowding that's quite common. Perhaps that would be a more rewarding job for the ticket inspector!

The answer to most paper ticket problems would be for TfL (and Merseyrail) to get off their backsides and to install gates that read Aztec codes, and for E-tickets to be universally issued.

Another possibility could be for the payment for TOD to only be deducted when the tickets are collected.

XC's overcrowding has long been something that has been noted both on the forums and elsewhere on the internet. Sadly, they refuse to do anything about it, with the DfT and XC playing "pass the buck" to each other.

As an aside, I don't think I've ever come across guards who were more hostile and frankly borderline unprofessional, than the guards on XC. One problem with living in the Midlands is that I have to put up with them for a lot more journeys than I wish I had to.

 

[Krokodil]

I think such a way of doing it would be too obnoxious and annoying for some, and those who you really do want to actually read and understand it would just click the button to dismiss anyway (and then still claim they weren't told).

I agree. We should fix the system, rather than relying on people to read warnings.

 

[Tetchytyke]

I’d probably expect a teacher not to let their personal admin slide to the level of ignoring multiple pieces of correspondence and only actioning the matter (and not properly, regrettably, by pleading not guilty when they were unquestionably guilty of the offence) once they’d been sent court paperwork. There would have been probably two letters sent before a summons or SJPN was sent out.

1. You have more faith in the competence of Cross Country's prosecution team than I do.
2. You have more faith in the competence of Royal Mail than I do.
3. You have more faith in the competence of HM Courts and Tribunals Service than I do.
4. See point 2 about Royal Mail.

As for your point about pleading guilty/not guilty, actually in this case it may have been useful for the person- had Royal Mail and/or HMCTS not lost the not guilty plea. It would then be listed for a proper trial before a proper bench and, as part of the preparations, it would have made XC's prosecution team look at the case again and reconsider the statutory public interest test.

And clearly XC now believe the prosecution doesn't pass the public interest test because, after a media headline, they're withdrawing the prosecution.

Just reason #866,438 as to why TOCs should lose the right to bring private prosecutions. The options should be: penalty fare or BTP referral.

She wasn't "fined" by the RPO, she was interviewed under caution and a report was made for prosecution.

What sort of RPI issues an MG11 to a pregnant woman on an overcrowded train because of this?

ETA to add: I bet one shiny Manx Pound the RPI wouldn't have done this to a white middle-aged man.

 

[azOOOOOma]

It's a worthy story for the press. Crosscountry journeys can be a nightmare, and they ought to be handing out 50% refunds to anyone suffering the gross overcrowding that's quite common. Perhaps that would be a more rewarding job for the ticket inspector!

The answer to most paper ticket problems would be for TfL (and Merseyrail) to get off their backsides and to install gates that read Aztec codes, and for E-tickets to be universally issued.

Another possibility could be for the payment for TOD to only be deducted when the tickets are collected.

I agree. Especially with the climate emergency that Sadiq Khan claims to want to help prevent. Surely e-tickets are better for the environment?

 

[Tetchytyke]

Print at home tickets are only valid if actually printed.

E-tickets do not have to be printed.

The issue here is that the person's ticket was presumably involving London or Liverpool and, therefore, the ticket had to be printed at a railway station. This is because Merseyrail and TfL have made the decision to not accept e-tickets because they won't/can't be arsed installing aztec code readers.

 

[Discuss223]

What sort of RPI issues an MG11 to a pregnant woman on an overcrowded train because of this?

One who knows the rules.

Regulation Of Railways Act 1889: Every passenger by a railway shall, on request by an officer or servant of a railway company, either produce, and if so requested deliver up, a ticket showing that his fare is paid

 

[Turtle]

She wasn't "fined" by the RPO, she was interviewed under caution and a report was made for prosecution.

It was the court who fined her.

What sort of person travels on a train without being in possession of a valid ticket?

From her point of view it was a valid ticket. She'd handed money over to the railway and had proof of payment. The majority of rail passengers are not like experts on the minutiae of rail law and practices dating back to the nineteenth century.