Moderator Note - this thread has been split from https://www.railforums.co.uk/threads/penalty-fare-gwr-urgent.291444/
It would be good to use this as a 'master thread' to collate examples of Penalty Fares that are not issued in accordance with the regulations.
Well you should appeal on the grounds that it was not issued in accordance with the regulations. They can't even get the statement saying what regulations it was issued under correct let alone fully comply with them! There is really no excuse for this. How hard is it to follow a mandatory checklist when designing such a template?
Appeal under 16(3)(a) after deciding what parts of 5 have been disregarded:
Regarding (h), the information that is presented is incomplete and thus incorrect and is anyway not presented in the clear form of "a statement" as required;
Regarding (i), you say you did what it says and it didn't work so the information presented appears to be wrong and therefore not compliant.
And what of the highly significant (2A)(a)(ii), which represents part of the outcome of a significant public consultation? Does GWR feel entitled to ignore this?
Worse, not only is that requirement disregarded, incorrect information is given as it states prominently "You must pay amount owing by 14/September/2025" with no caveats which is just plain wrong, contradicting both (h) and (2A)(a)(ii).
Following an appeal, I'd suggest you take this up with the authorities (Transport Focus, MP, ORR, DfT, the press) and put pressure on them to determine how many other GWR Penalty Fares were issued using this non-compliant template and should have been deemed unenforceable and cancelled and to try to see that people who paid get refunded with interest and compensation. The status of any court proceedings following non-payment may also need looking into i.e. whether information presented to a court may now be found to have been misleading and whether or not any cases may need to be reopened.
== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: ==
It's arguable too that the section saying what an appeal should include is also not compliant as it does not conform to what the regulations say an appeal must include. Ref 16(2)(b)
Anyone who doesn't actually read the wrongly-referenced regulations may have been tricked into making an appeal that doesn't actually count as one, or deterred from making an appeal by not realising there are additional grounds available that are simply not mentioned.
(I think the next iteration of these regulations need to be tightened to explicitly stamp out these things, not that the train companies seem to care about complying and the authorities seem toothless at enforcing them. Maybe it's time for criminal sanctions for negligent non-compliance...)
== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: ==
Now this has moved out of the original thread, I'll mention that another problem we've seen in several threads but which I didn't mention because so far it's not caused any critical problems, is sentences that don't make any sense because of missing letters and words that were lost off the right hand side of the printing.
== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: ==
Of all the problems, I think the one listing the information that should be provided to appeal is the worst, because it acts to discourage certain people from considering an appeal and discourages those who do appeal from mentioning other information that might be pertinent (including errors on the notice). While the technicalities might undermine the legal basis for the notices, it is the diminution of the appeal rights that means many of these penalties should be considered unsound. Nobody can know how many notices had no appeal or had key grounds missed from an appeal in situations where an appeal might have been won had accurate information about appeals been provided.
It would be good to use this as a 'master thread' to collate examples of Penalty Fares that are not issued in accordance with the regulations.
Well you should appeal on the grounds that it was not issued in accordance with the regulations. They can't even get the statement saying what regulations it was issued under correct let alone fully comply with them! There is really no excuse for this. How hard is it to follow a mandatory checklist when designing such a template?
Appeal under 16(3)(a) after deciding what parts of 5 have been disregarded:
Regarding (h), the information that is presented is incomplete and thus incorrect and is anyway not presented in the clear form of "a statement" as required;
Regarding (i), you say you did what it says and it didn't work so the information presented appears to be wrong and therefore not compliant.
And what of the highly significant (2A)(a)(ii), which represents part of the outcome of a significant public consultation? Does GWR feel entitled to ignore this?
Worse, not only is that requirement disregarded, incorrect information is given as it states prominently "You must pay amount owing by 14/September/2025" with no caveats which is just plain wrong, contradicting both (h) and (2A)(a)(ii).
Following an appeal, I'd suggest you take this up with the authorities (Transport Focus, MP, ORR, DfT, the press) and put pressure on them to determine how many other GWR Penalty Fares were issued using this non-compliant template and should have been deemed unenforceable and cancelled and to try to see that people who paid get refunded with interest and compensation. The status of any court proceedings following non-payment may also need looking into i.e. whether information presented to a court may now be found to have been misleading and whether or not any cases may need to be reopened.
== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: ==
It's arguable too that the section saying what an appeal should include is also not compliant as it does not conform to what the regulations say an appeal must include. Ref 16(2)(b)
Anyone who doesn't actually read the wrongly-referenced regulations may have been tricked into making an appeal that doesn't actually count as one, or deterred from making an appeal by not realising there are additional grounds available that are simply not mentioned.
(I think the next iteration of these regulations need to be tightened to explicitly stamp out these things, not that the train companies seem to care about complying and the authorities seem toothless at enforcing them. Maybe it's time for criminal sanctions for negligent non-compliance...)
== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: ==
Now this has moved out of the original thread, I'll mention that another problem we've seen in several threads but which I didn't mention because so far it's not caused any critical problems, is sentences that don't make any sense because of missing letters and words that were lost off the right hand side of the printing.
== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: ==
Of all the problems, I think the one listing the information that should be provided to appeal is the worst, because it acts to discourage certain people from considering an appeal and discourages those who do appeal from mentioning other information that might be pertinent (including errors on the notice). While the technicalities might undermine the legal basis for the notices, it is the diminution of the appeal rights that means many of these penalties should be considered unsound. Nobody can know how many notices had no appeal or had key grounds missed from an appeal in situations where an appeal might have been won had accurate information about appeals been provided.
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