Help Over £510 Rail Fine

[Haywain]

in December, it doesn't seem at all likely that clearing the conviction will be possible.

Although, on the bright side, it will be a spent conviction soon if it isn't already.

 

[WesternLancer]

If this thread had been posted in February there may have been many things we may have been able to usefully suggest. At this stage however, in December, it doesn't seem at all likely that clearing the conviction will be possible.

perhaps @pedr can post more info about the process for doing an SD that is after the 21 day period? (or as per @Fawkes Cat suggestion) the OP / daughter might wish to consider getting help from a solicitor to do this for them professionally.

This would then allow them to do the next stages (resolve it with the train company without prosecution, with advice from here for free - whatever 'it' is because we can't establish what offence was committed or if the daughter did commit any offence or if false details were given by someone else).

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 3 Dec 2025 ==

This would appear to make the possibility of any impersonation extremely unlikely.

Genuine question why do you conclude that? (though it would be good to rule it out if possible)

We've not seen anything from LNER or the court or any other train company that says the incident relates to this train journey - we only have the OP saying they assume it was this journey (but they also say that originally they assumed it might be a parking fine so I'm not sure we can be confident about this yet at all - beyond of course knowing the OP has sound reason now to say it involves a train company)

@ademac can you answer my previous question about how your daughter knows this?
ie was it someone in the court who has told her this, or did they give her a written copy of the prosecution notice that says this - I am assuming not because if they did you would have got a copy and uploaded it)

 

[pedr]

One unfortunate fact about any legal system is that people will sometimes be wrongly convicted or system failures and misunderstandings and miscommunications will lead to outcomes that seem unfair. One approach to this is to accept that this has happened here, that the conviction is going to stand (and will be “spent” under the terms of the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 12 months after the date the court process took place). That may have some effects on future employment discussions etc in future but it is not an exceedingly serious situation. It also means that the fine will have to be paid.

Another approach is to pay for the services of a solicitor to take over the paperwork completion and chasing using their expertise and experience to navigate the systems and processes. This probably won’t be economically rational even if it gets the fine refunded, but it is a route to attempt to get the conviction overturned. Even if your daughter did commit a crime that day, if she’d received letters about it and responded, paying some sum the train company considered they were owed, the company wouldn’t have prosecuted so the significant problem here is not receiving those initial letters. Train companies do sometimes re-engage with people who’ve been convicted, get the conviction cancelled because they weren’t aware of the case, and then get back in touch with the company to offer to pay the company’s costs and the money owing for a ticket etc.

Trying to do this yourself is more complicated by the time that’s passed. I think it would be helpful for you and your daughter to put together a full and complete list of every phone call, email, personal visit, form filled, etc with the date and time and the nature of the response, either to take to a solicitor, today if possible, or to work through and decide if it’s likely to appear that from the time your daughter realised this was a criminal conviction, she’s focused pretty much solely on getting someone to realise that she wasn’t aware of the case before it went to court, or waiting for responses to contact she’s made following advice from court staff. If the delay is, in part, because she stopped spending time chasing it for a few months, it becomes harder to argue that she has the right to have the conviction removed and the process re-set. But there are routes to get cases re-opened, and court administration can be very slow, and a solicitor should be able to advise. They’d need a good timeline to be able to decide if they could help, though.

 

[Spaceship323]

The fine is in the process of being paid off.

As the attachment of Earnings order is nearly a year old isn't the fine nearly paid off anyway? and can any monies paid be reclaimed from the court if the conviction is proved to be incorrect?

 

[pedr]

perhaps @pedr can post more info about the process for doing an SD that is after the 21 day period? (or as per @Fawkes Cat suggestion) the OP / daughter might wish to consider getting help from a solicitor to do this for them professionally.

All I know is that the form (which is available here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/statutory-declaration-of-ignorance-of-proceedings) invites an explanation of why the form is being submitted later than 21 days after becoming aware of the conviction.

Professional advice would help with this, and with deciding what date to put as the relevant date - we know that an attachment of earnings notice means a criminal conviction, but many people don’t realise that at the time and don’t connect it with criminal processes, and that seems to be the case here. Nevertheless it’s clearly more than 21 days since the daughter here had actual knowledge that she’d been convicted of an offence, so accepting the statutory declaration is something the court has discretion to do but would need to be convinced. It may, in reality, be so out of time that it is almost certainly not going to be accepted, but experienced professionals are best placed to advise on that, which will cost money.

 

[WesternLancer]

As the attachment of Earnings order is nearly a year old isn't the fine nearly paid off anyway? and can any monies paid be reclaimed from the court if the conviction is proved to be incorrect?

I believe they would be repaid in that scenario. An SD resets the whole thing surely.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 3 Dec 2025 ==

All I know is that the form (which is available here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/statutory-declaration-of-ignorance-of-proceedings) invites an explanation of why the form is being submitted later than 21 days after becoming aware of the conviction.

Professional advice would help with this, and with deciding what date to put as the relevant date - we know that an attachment of earnings notice means a criminal conviction, but many people don’t realise that at the time and don’t connect it with criminal processes, and that seems to be the case here. Nevertheless it’s clearly more than 21 days since the daughter here had actual knowledge that she’d been convicted of an offence, so accepting the statutory declaration is something the court has discretion to do but would need to be convinced. It may, in reality, be so out of time that it is almost certainly not going to be accepted, but experienced professionals are best placed to advise on that, which will cost money.

Thanks and good points.

I wonder if these forms the op mentions that the daughter has been advised to fill in (who by? Someone at a court?) may actually be SD forms?

If the op and family can’t afford professional help then I can’t see much is lost by having attempted to carry out the SD process oneself tho advice here might ensure it is gone most effectively. But it may be too late to help with that if SD forms have in fact been submitted already.

We do need to know more about these forms I think.

The argument could be made was that the date learned about it wasn't actually the attachment of earnings info from her employer, but it was when the daughter got to the bottom of what this order was for and discovered it related to a train matter, and then had some advice from the court (I assume) and completed forms

But we need to know what the forms are because they may in fact be SD forms anyway....(so it may have already been requested which may or may not be granted depending on how effectively the paperwork was completed I suspect)

 

[Tetchytyke]

That needn't be a problem for many people, but for some regulated professions (I think particularly medicine, law, accountancy and finance) a conviction can be a total bar.

I can't speak for other professions and other regulators, but in my sector a minor criminal conviction (which a Regulation of Railways Act or Byelaws conviction would be) wouldn't be a bar. You would have to declare it on any application to the regulator but, certainly in my sector, it wouldn't on its own be sufficient to cause issues with any fitness and propriety assessment. If you didn't declare it then that would be different.

It may, in reality, be so out of time that it is almost certainly not going to be accepted, but experienced professionals are best placed to advise on that, which will cost money.

As you say, it will very much depend on when the daughter became aware that it was a criminal conviction and what steps, if any, she has taken to resolve it since she became aware it was a criminal conviction.

I am not a solicitor (criminal law or otherwise) but I was an accredited debt adviser for many years. In my opinion it would be very very difficult to have this matter set aside now. It reads to me as though the daughter has buried her head in the sand about the issue, and I attach no judgement or blame on her for that; I regularly used to advise people who arrived in my office with black bin bags full of debt paperwork, it is very common. But the consequence of burying one's head in the sand is that it sometimes means that one loses the option of resolving the situation.

As the attachment of Earnings order is nearly a year old isn't the fine nearly paid off anyway? and can any monies paid be reclaimed from the court if the conviction is proved to be incorrect?

If the conviction is set aside then the monies would be returned.

As for whether the fine is nearly paid off, that depends on how much the daughter earns. The attachment is repaid at a percentage of the person's net earnings, and that percentage is set in law and it is different depending on how much they earn.

 

[chrisjo]

Genuine question why do you conclude that? (though it would be good to rule it out if possible)

Based on the OP's statement that:

The date we’ve been given for the invalid ticket offence was 20th April for getting on a train to Leeds at 13.36

Which is the train that the daughter was on. But it's not clear how this information was obtained.

 

[AlterEgo]

The key to this is obviously with the daughter. It seems reasonably clear she was stopped, and spoken to about her ticket (was there no railcard carried on the trip?) and then for whatever reason the daughter has not actioned any correspondence, or the court papers, and now we are where we are.

 

[Tetchytyke]

I understand what you’re saying but no matter how many visits to the courts etc she’s just given numbers to ring and is then told to fill out forms and, which she does, they are never responded to.

I definitely sympathise, the Magistrates Court system is not easy to navigate unless you know who to speak to, and the staffing issues particularly since Covid have made it worse. Unless we know what forms she was asked to fill in its impossible to advise further. There are several forms which would only be appropriate if your daughter had accepted the conviction and wished for the Court to vary either the amount of the fine or the repayment terms. But if there's an Attachment of Earnings those forms are often of more limited value as the deduction rate is set out in law; they're only of benefit in trying to get the attachment order cancelled where the attachment would, for instance, cause someone to lose their job.

Hindsight is always a wonderful thing, but your daughter would have been better placed contacting her students' union advice service or Citizens Advice for advice when the attachment order was given to her. I don't judge. As I said above, I regularly helped people who brought in literal bin bags full of paperwork; burying one's head in the sand is a very common reaction, and an understandable one in many cases.

My opinion, and it is only my opinion, is that spending money on legal advice now would simply be chucking good money after bad.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 3 Dec 2025 ==

But it's not clear how this information was obtained.

The Magistrates Court fines office have access to the basic particulars of the offence, which will read along the lines of at xx time on xx date you entered a train without having paid the fare. Certainly when I used to ring up the fines office on behalf of my debt clients they could tell me when the offence took place and roughly what it was for (most of the convictions I saw were either fines from convictions for non-payment of the Metro fare in Newcastle or for not having a TV Licence.)

 

[ademac]

The key to this is obviously with the daughter. It seems reasonably clear she was stopped, and spoken to about her ticket (was there no railcard carried on the trip?) and then for whatever reason the daughter has not actioned any correspondence, or the court papers, and now we are where we are.

She had her 4 year student railcard and ticket on her, they were/ are both on her phone which she definitely had on her

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 3 Dec 2025 ==

She had her 4 year student railcard and ticket on her, they were/ are both on her phone which she definitely had on her

The correspondence was going to an old student address and she states she was never stopped on the train. It was chaotic, it was a strike day. She had to cast her mind back from February when the earnings letter came to last April 20th

 

[AlterEgo]

She had her 4 year student railcard and ticket on her, they were/ are both on her phone which she definitely had on her

Was she able to show the railcard?

 

[pedr]

Did she have any interaction with railway staff on the day? Was the ticket inspected and scanned on a train? Was it scanned at origin or destination barriers? Train companies shouldn’t (and generally don’t) bring cases just on the basis of ticket scans, without a conversation at the time, but it’s possible something went wrong with the company’s record-keeping, an inspector made a mistake somewhere along the line, etc.

 

[ademac]

Based on the OP's statement that:

Which is the train that the daughter was on. But it's not clear how this information was obtained.

She was told over the phone to someone at the court after begging because she still didn’t know what train journey she supposedly didn’t have a ticket for ( invalid ticket)

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 3 Dec 2025 ==

Was she able to show the railcard?

She can’t remember anything out of the ordinary happening on this journey and doesn’t remember if she was even asked for her ticket / railcard

 

[Haywain]

she states she was never stopped on the train.

What about at the barriers at Leeds?

She had her 4 year student railcard and ticket on her, they were/ are both on her phone which she definitely had on her

Had the phone battery died?

 

[SuspectUsual]

I think it would be really helpful if the OP could get from his daughter everything she can recollect about every element of that journey, so for example:

- buying the ticket

- receiving the ticket / collecting the ticket

- entering the starting station

- each ticket check on the train(s)
=> visual check or scan of ticket?
=> requested to show railcard?
=> any questions asked?
=> if so, what responses given?

- leaving the destination station

I know there have been some details given eg "she states she was never stopped on the train", but that's a statement about something that DIDN'T happen. Can we find out everything that DID happen?

 

[island]

As the attachment of Earnings order is nearly a year old isn't the fine nearly paid off anyway?

Not necessarily. It depends on how much the person earns. For example, if a person works part time earning £900 a month, the decision per month would be £45.

and can any monies paid be reclaimed from the court if the conviction is proved to be incorrect?

If the conviction is set aside then the monies would be returned.

Indeed.

 

[Haywain]

Not necessarily. It depends on how much the person earns. For example, if a person works part time earning £900 a month, the decision per month would be £45.

So, paid off in 11 months.

 

[furlong]

No more guessing: At this stage you need to focus fundamentally on the charge before the court that led to the conviction and obtain full details firstly from the court or secondly if necessary from the prosecutor that the court identifies to you. Only once you have that information can you evaluate the options properly. I.e. if the defendant had been able to present a defence would they still have been likely to have been convicted?

 

[johnny_t]

How does the court find out who the employer is if you don't tell them ? How much investigation will they put into it ?

Also, as the employer, does the court not write to you first to check whether they do actually work for you ?

 

[AlterEgo]

How does the court find out who the employer is if you don't tell them ? How much investigation will they put into it ?

Also, as the employer, does the court not write to you first to check whether they do actually work for you ?

They just check PAYE records which will tell them. Not rocket science!

 

[WesternLancer]

For @ademac , thanks for doing your best to answer the questions being asked of you. I appreciate that these are questions you are answering on behalf of your daughter, and that they relate to events some time ago now.

I thought it might be worth trying to summarise where we've got to and what might be outstanding info that would be helpful to know, as well as perhaps thinking of things you as a family need to consider.

Others may think of things to add to this list

But I don't think there is much more specific advice that can be given without answers to these questions

It might be helpful if in any replies to any of this you used the numbers below for clarity. Ideally run through them with your daughter too.

Things important to know if it's possible to get more information

1) Being questioned on the train (or at a ticket barrier line) about anything wrong with the ticket. It sounds like your daughter has no recollections of this happening but it's important you and she are 100% or as close to 100% confident of that as you can be?

2) What are the forms she has submitted, that you have mentioned, and who gave them to her / told her to fill them in?

3) Has she got copies of the forms she submitted and when were they submitted?

4) Where were these forms submitted to?

Note - these questions about the forms seem vital to me because they may already be Statutory Declaration forms (SD) - we really need to know what your daughter has done here - and more importantly - she needs to know!

To consider

5) are you prepared to pay for professional help to try and resolve this? - by which I mean go to a solicitor to help with a Statutory Declaration (help beyond the simple witnessing of one that is part of the process and is charged at a fixed fee of c£10 IIRC), and potentially any follow up work which may or may not then be required.

Note - I've no specific idea of what that might cost but I suspect several hundred pounds - so the trade off is paying them in the hope this might remove the criminal record and cancel the fine being collected (and refund sums paid) and permit re-engagement with the train company over the hole thing after this court judgment is withdrawn - which means the train company then have to decide if they want to settle out of court, prosecute again, or drop the case (for example if none of this involved your daughter). This is a trade off as mentioned above as to whether it's 'throwing good money after bad', leaving the alternative of trying to progress matters yourself with advice from amateurs on line here, or just writing the whole thing off as no possible to resolve for the time and effort and cost required.

6) do you (well your daughter would have to actually sign and send the letter) want to write to LNER to try to find out more about what they think has happened / why they believe your daughter travelled without a valid ticket in the hope that gets you more of an explanation? (I'm mindful that your daughter and you believe there was nothing wrong with her ticket), and by supplying a copy of her photo ID she may be able to see if they believe she was the traveller concerned?

Note - this should not delay the much more urgent task of dealing with the court situation (see post #49) but if it's something you wish to do I'd happily help draft something that could be sent to LNER so you could see what they say in reply.

 

[ademac]

No more guessing: At this stage you need to focus fundamentally on the charge before the court that led to the conviction and obtain full details firstly from the court or secondly if necessary from the prosecutor that the court identifies to you. Only once you have that information can you evaluate the options properly. I.e. if the defendant had been able to present a defence would they still have been likely to have been convicted?

Gar all makes sense but if she goes to the court no one will help and she’s not allowed to see the duty solicitor

 

[SuspectUsual]

5) are you prepared to pay for professional help to try and resolve this? - by which I mean go to a solicitor to help with a Statutory Declaration (help beyond the simple witnessing of one that is part of the process and is charged at a fixed fee of c£10 IIRC), and potentially any follow up work which may or may not then be required.

Note - I've no specific idea of what that might cost but I suspect several hundred pounds - so the trade off is paying them in the hope this might remove the criminal record and cancel the fine being collected (and refund sums paid) and permit re-engagement with the train company over the hole thing after this court judgment is withdrawn - which means the train company then have to decide if they want to settle out of court, prosecute again, or drop the case (for example if none of this involved your daughter). This is a trade off as mentioned above as to whether it's 'throwing good money after bad', leaving the alternative of trying to progress matters yourself with advice from amateurs on line here, or just writing the whole thing off as no possible to resolve for the time and effort and cost required.

Is there another option here? Can the OP / the daughter get an initial consultation with a solicitor that would cost a lot less but identify what exactly is and isn't possible, and therefore better inform a decision as to the way forward?

 

[WesternLancer]

Is there another option here? Can the OP / the daughter get an initial consultation with a solicitor that would cost a lot less but identify what exactly is and isn't possible, and therefore better inform a decision as to the way forward?

sounds like a good idea to try - but it will then also be important to have compiled a timeline for all of this as mentioned by others above, clearly for the solicitor to follow in what would be a time limited initial consultation. And they would presumably want to know what these forms are that have been submitted
and to who.

and I'd suggest doing it ASAP - ideally before Friday mid day this week if feasible to do

 

[SuspectUsual]

sounds like a good idea to try - but it will then also be important to have compiled a timeline for all of this as mentioned by others above, clearly for the solicitor to follow in what would be a time limited initial consultation. And they would presumably want to know what these forms are that have been submitted
and to who.

and I'd suggest doing it ASAP - ideally before Friday mid day this week if feasible to do

Yes that's pretty much what I had in mind

 

[Gloster]

As someone who has once had to accompany a friend to an initial consultation with a solicitor, I will put my oar in and say that there is a problem. The consultation will be brief, so the OP’s daughter needs to be prepared to clearly explain the problem and have any supporting documents to hand. The solicitor is unlikely to be able to give advice if the OP’s daughter can’t explain the situation in any detail as she doesn’t really know how she got to this stage. Once she does have the information she may not need to see a solicitor.

 

[ademac]

So, paid off in 11 months.

She’s a full time uni student so current payments are £12 a month but it varies according to income

 

[WesternLancer]

Gar all makes sense but if she goes to the court no one will help and she’s not allowed to see the duty solicitor

as per post #13 from @KirkstallOne

What you really need to see is the prosecution paperwork, likely a single justice procedure notice. The magistrate’s court should be able to (in fact must) supply a copy of these to your daughter so try the enquiries line first off.

Has your daughter (or you with her authority to do so assuming she is over 18) tried to do this with the enquiry line by any chance? (as opposed to in person) or in writing using the contact details listed here for Leeds Magistrates Court

see

Leeds District Magistrates' Court and Family Court - Find a Court or Tribunal - GOV.UK

Leeds District Magistrates' Court and Family Court - Find contact details, opening times, how to get to here, types of cases managed, disabled access to the building

www.find-court-tribunal.service.gov.uk

I suspect this issue may well not be in the remit of the duty solicitor to help with (but I am not an expert on court matters)

 

[island]

I suspect this issue may well not be in the remit of the duty solicitor to help with (but I am not an expert on court matters)

Just to confirm that access to duty solicitor is only something you're entitled to if either (1) you appear in court having been arrested or (2) you are at risk of going to prison. Neither of these applies here. If the passenger wishes to have a solicitor she will need to make other arrangements (and pay for one).