Just means that they are still investigating things in my opinion.
It's a holding letter. They haven't forgotten about you, but they're not ready to send you a detailed reply yet.
What was this scandal about? And do you know how they haven’t been following the law? x
Yeah … it really is! What do you mean by “varied travel patterns” by the way? x
If they run out of time (6 months) for a criminal prosecution they can still pursue you via the civil court, however they will only be able claim the actual loss to the railway. There are at least a couple of recent threads on this subject, notably a case involving GWR where they started off wanting £2800 odd after a series of negotiations it was whittled down to £255 which the OP accepted
Ah, okay , thank you … not to sound daft but what does this mean to me?
We're beginning to mix up two different (but related) things.Ah, okay , thank you … not to sound daft but what does this mean to me?
It sounds like they will approach me with an out of court settlement , but if it’s after the 6 month period , are you saying the settlement amount could be reduced? x
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I’m just a bit stressed
I think something with nothing to do with railway prosecutions but a case where it has been raised that non legally qualified staff can not bring certain aspects of cases to courts and only solicitors can (or some such thing) I think it is resulting in organisations that do lots of these sorts of prosecution cases (like the railway) bodies reviewing their processes to bring things into line with the new ruling.
IIRC correctly you said originally that you did not pay full fare on some journeys but it was not always the same journey - ie you don't just travel A to C every day and fail to pay B to C in exactly the same way - you travel to various different destinations on different occasions and did different things with different railcard discounts over time that meant your non payment of fares had a varied pattern. Hence 'varied' - apols if I have that wrong.
I would consider what will happen after 6 months when 6 months has passed, but I see useful info has been posted on that scenario for you. That's a good 4 months away....
Exactly this - and if I were you I wouldn’t worry too much about what any more holding e-mails seem to suggest if they’re apologising for the delay. “Fred locked the only copy of the case notes in his drawer on Friday and he’s now in Lanzarote for a fortnight” isn’t the sort of thing you admit in a holding e-mail!
You have no reason to assume they have messed up re your case.
They have 6 months from the date of the offence to commence court proceedings.
so I guess a couple of months more plus a few weeks for the paperwork to go through the system.
Thank you!
Thank you!
Once the 6 months is done then the prospect of a criminal prosecution is off the table. The TOC will no longer have all the cards so you should be able to negotiate a settlement with them to avoid a civil claim. Best to post further correspondence here when they contact you, with personal details redacted
Quite remarkable you’ve not been sent anything given you stent responses saying your case was being looked into. Hard to know what to expect really.
But they did seem to do other cases during this time as I thought we’d seen some c
Surely they’d reach out to me about a settlement before doing anything else ? I’ve been very co-operative and they said they would so it would be a bit for them to just prosecute me without at least offering me something first as they said they would right ? Regarding any civil proceedings I work in a regulated profession and civil proceedings would still be something I would need to report . I honestly just want to pay and get this over and done with, but I have no idea what’s happening or why they haven’t reached out since November . They did say there would be a delay to be fair , but im just not sure what’s happenedOnce the 6 months is up you can no longer be prosecuted, however the prosecution could begin 5 minutes before 6 months and it’d take a few days or weeks for correspondence from the court to reach you so you can’t be sure they’ve missed the deadline until around 7 months.
Civil proceedings are nothing to be scared of and as long as you promptly pay the amount you’re ordered to pay there are no consequences, not even on your credit score. Avoiding civil proceedings may mean paying a lot more than necessary. But that’ll be your choice if it comes to it.
Just to clarify, there is no “fine” to pay unless issued by a court in a criminal case. If you’re contacted with a threat of civil proceedings, the first step will be negotiating a settlement, but they may not be willing to agree to a reasonable settlement, in which case court could save you money.
Come back to us if you hear anything from them and we can help
I honestly don’t know what the reason for the delay is , they did say they’d reach out to me so they may wait until the 11th hour to do so but if it’s literally 5 minutes before the 6 months is up they’re giving me very little time to even pay the amount ? I suppose then it could bleed into civil proceedings but again I would rather negotiate a settlement
Yeah honestly it’s really stressing me out , I don’t know if I should reach out again or not to see what’s happening but I reached out plenty last year and they made it clear they would get back to me as and when
What we see occasionally is a railway company starting court proceedings but still being open to an out of court settlement. And that makes sense from their point of view: they need leverage to get you to pay up, and while their preferred method is for the six month prosecution window to be available, having an actual prosecution underway (but not yet heard) will work as well.
They said they were undergoing some “internal changes” back in November and it would be several months before they got back to me . I don’t really know anything else , has happened to anybody else ??
This is just so stressful I’m worried about my work mainly because as I mentioned I work in a regulated profession but don’t want to say anything until I know what’s actually happening
I can understand how you feel - but I think now it's best to just leave it in their court and wait to see if they do or do not take action before the 6 months.
Not too sure tbh. I think the only thig we have seen from SE recently was the email about internal changes that OP mentions? I could be wrong.
If they have pursued this, it mat take a couple of weeks for court papers to arrive.
