Itapped on an didnt realized tapping out outside zone. Berkhamstead to Milton Keynes central.

AlterEgo said:

RoRA may well be proven by actions, the passenger having travelled beyond the payment of their fare. Merely walking past an open ticket office was always sufficient to prove this in the past.

https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/Vict/8-9/20/section/103 requires only neglect on the part of the passenger when overtravelling. That is, they wilfully did not check whether their ticket was valid, for example.

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Never seen this used in court. And it still requires intent. Either the RORA or the Bylaws are usually used.

In the OP's case, it's a slam dunk under Bylaw 17; they no longer had a valid ticket as soon as the train left the contactless zone. As everyone, apart from the OP, seems to accept.

Puffing Devil said:

Never seen this used in court. And it still requires intent. Either the RORA or the Bylaws are usually used.

In the OP's case, it's a slam dunk under Bylaw 17; they no longer had a valid ticket as soon as the train left the contactless zone. As everyone, apart from the OP, seems to accept.

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Do you mean Bylaw 18, as this is not a compulsory ticket area? In which case I agree, as ticket validity is bound up in the journey being made or attempting to be made.

I am on Berkhamsted station. I board a train. I have a ticket. Is it valid? (A: we don't know because the answer to that requires context, like where I am going and what the ticket is exactly that I hold).

AlterEgo said:

I am on Berkhamsted station. I board a train. I have a ticket. Is it valid? (A: we don't know because the answer to that requires context, like where I am going and what the ticket is exactly that I hold).

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If you use contactless and it isn't blocked, don't you have an implicit ticket as far as Bletchley? Presumably to travel to Milton Keynes, you would need to have bought a Bletchley to MK ticket online before the train departed Bletchley (assuming it stopped there). Also the incomplete tap out would need to be resolved.

AlterEgo said:

Do you mean Bylaw 18, as this is not a compulsory ticket area? In which case I agree, as ticket validity is bound up in the journey being made or attempting to be made.

I am on Berkhamsted station. I board a train. I have a ticket. Is it valid? (A: we don't know because the answer to that requires context, like where I am going and what the ticket is exactly that I hold).

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Isn't MKC a CTA? If not, the OP may well have a loophole!

The RORA is out, as the OP will claim there was no intent.

For Bylaw 18, the OP had a valid ticket when they boarded the train.

Maybe worth running if the OP is determined to go to court, but I would want some legal support.

Edit to add: If the OP boarded at Berkhamstead with a contactless "ticket" and the intention of travelling to MKC, they did not have a valid ticket and this is the track I would take if a prosecutor. The difference is being overcarried to MKC or an intention to travel to MKC.

Puffing Devil said:

Isn't MKC a CTA?

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It isn't!

Puffing Devil said:

Edit to add: If the OP boarded at Berkhamstead with a contactless "ticket" and the intention of travelling to MKC, they did not have a valid ticket and this is the track I would take if a prosecutor. The difference is being overcarried to MKC or an intention to travel to MKC.

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This is where I would sit. The intention to go to MKC rather than being overcarried is material. Though we are a little deep in the weeds now and maybe worth restating that the OP's best recourse here is to pay and go to Transport Focus who will likely be sympathetic.

AlterEgo said:

It isn't!


This is where I would sit. The intention to go to MKC rather than being overcarried is material. Though we are a little deep in the weeds now and maybe worth restating that the OP's best recourse here is to pay and go to Transport Focus who will likely be sympathetic.

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So presumably paying the £50+ fare to close it down (then engaging Transport Focus to seek redress on this somehow?)

Versus going to court and arguing a fairly technical avenue around compulsory ticket areas and hope the magistrates understand the technicalities?

Puffing Devil said:

Isn't MKC a CTA?

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Depending on your interpretation, either no (national rail) CTAs exist any more anywhere, or else they remain limited to handful of stations mostly around Chiltern routes.

The RORA is out, as the OP will claim there was no intent.

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Not necessarily under the (debatable but nevertheless still quoted) "strict liability for fraud" case law where "if I hadn't stopped you, you wouldn't have paid the right fare" may be deemed intent.

For Bylaw 18, the OP had a valid ticket when they boarded the train

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Indeed - the offence is committed at that point in time - what happens in the future can't retrospectively determine if it was or was not an offence.
Over-travelling is specifically covered by different offences.

But let's not get distracted. If an actual prosecution is attempted then we may address relevant arguments (which have all been debated on previous threads).

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 6 Jul 2026 ==

The key to this one is to review the PF paperwork, to understand how likely a civil court would be to uphold it.

AlterEgo said:

I strongly advise you don't go to court. You did commit a criminal offence, one of strict liability.

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What offence are you thinking of?

Byelaw 18(1) makes it an offence to board a train without a valid ticket. The OP's contactless card was valid when they boarded and indeed it was validated as such during the journey. So there can be no offence committed under this Byelaw.

Byelaw 18(2) makes it an offence to fail to hand over a ticket for inspection. It does not make it an offence to fail to hand over a valid ticket. I would suggest the absence of the word "valid" in the offence is quite deliberate; it means that provided you boarded with a valid ticket, you cannot be prosecuted for inadvertently travelling beyond its validity.

The OP did hand over their card for inspection, and the same card was previously a "valid ticket", so I don't think an argument by the TOC along the lines that it isn't a ticket outside the contactless PAYG area would carry much weight. So again, no offence committed under this Byelaw.

That leaves section 5(3)(a) of the Regulation of Railways Act, or section 103 of the Railway Consolidation Clauses Act 1845. Both require evidence of intent. Merely failing to observe signage, and thereby making the same mistake as many others, is not evidence of intent. So again, no offence under those.

I don't think the OP has committed any offence here. A Penalty Fare may still be imposed in these circumstances in principle, but it may have been issued unlawfully as we well know.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 6 Jul 2026 ==

AlterEgo said:

RoRA may well be proven by actions, the passenger having travelled beyond the payment of their fare. Merely walking past an open ticket office was always sufficient to prove this in the past.

https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/Vict/8-9/20/section/103 requires only neglect on the part of the passenger when overtravelling. That is, they wilfully did not check whether their ticket was valid, for example.

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It requires that the passenger knowingly and wilfully overtravels. Clearly in this case, the OP did not appreciate their ticket was only valid to Bletchley. Indeed the successful onboard check may have reinforced their view that it was valid the entire way.

Watershed said:

Byelaw 18(1) makes it an offence to board a train without a valid ticket. The OP's contactless card was valid when they boarded and indeed it was validated as such during the journey. So there can be no offence committed under this Byelaw.

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This is where we would need to go through the legal system: the "ticket", being the tapped-in card, was not valid for the journey the OP was making. It was valid in the contactless zone, and when checked on board, the OP was not asked their destination, so passed a check. I don't think there is any case law around this.

Edit to add:
I think the best comparison to this is when Stansted was outside the contactless area. To my knowledge, there were no failed prosecutions, and this is the same scenario. Boarding in a contactless zone, hoping to complete the journeyt where contactless was not valid, hence no ticket.

Puffing Devil said:

This is where we would need to go through the legal system: the "ticket", being the tapped-in card, was not valid for the journey the OP was making. It was valid in the contactless zone, and when checked on board, the OP was not asked their destination, so passed a check. I don't think there is any case law around this.

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The legislation does not say the ticket must be valid for the entire journey intended to be made, indeed the Byelaws steer clear of intent-based offences precisely because they are harder to prove.

For it to be a valid ticket, it merely needs to be valid to board that train, which a contactless card certainly is at Berkhampsted.

Puffing Devil said:

Edit to add:
I think the best comparison to this is when Stansted was outside the contactless area. To my knowledge, there were no failed prosecutions, and this is the same scenario. Boarding in a contactless zone, hoping to complete the journeyt where contactless was not valid, hence no ticket.

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It was, in principle, legitimate to issue Penalty Fares; by and large, that is how those issues were dealt with and many of them will have been paid.

For those that were left unpaid, some will undoubtedly have been prosecuted but just because this happened, it does not mean those prosecutions were legitimately brought. Indeed we know that the vast majority of rail prosecutions are not defended, and for many the defendant doesn’t even enter a plea at all.

We know that the railway brought thousands of RoRA prosecutions improperly under the SJPN procedure, with it taking years for this to be challenged. It is not at all implausible that something similar happened with Stansted. Indeed if I were a lawyer looking for the next case along the lines of the SJPN fiasco, it’s exactly the kind of case I’d be looking into.

AndyMX said:

I didnt evade buying a ticket, i have proof from TFL contactless log and even inspector time on the train. i paid £13 something on my bank statement. Mk was the last stop anyway.

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Might this possibly have been some incomplete journey charge?

Watershed said:

The legislation does not say the ticket must be valid for the entire journey intended to be made, indeed the Byelaws steer clear of intent-based offences precisely because they are harder to prove.

For it to be a valid ticket, it merely needs to be valid to board that train, which a contactless card certainly is at Berkhampsted.

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I think the Byelaw 18(1) test needs to be read alongside the NRCoT, not in isolation from it. NRCoT 6.1 defines a Ticket as including a validated contactless PAYG card "where accepted", and says you must hold a valid Ticket or authority to travel "for the journey you intend to make" before boarding. Condition 13.4 then treats travel beyond the destination permitted by your ticket as travelling without a valid ticket for that additional part of the journey. These conditions exist precisely to define what "valid" means for the purposes of the Byelaws. The Byelaw doesn't operate in a vacuum with its own freestanding definition of a ticket. It borrows the definition from the NRCoT, and the NRCoT is explicit that validity is tied to the journey intended, not just the act of tapping in at a station where PAYG happens to be accepted.

The OP's card was a valid authority to travel as far as Bletchley. It was never a valid authority to travel to MKC, because PAYG simply isn't accepted for that leg. So the position at the moment of boarding wasn't "valid ticket, becomes invalid later." It was "never valid for the journey being undertaken," with the mid-journey scan not curing that, because the scan only confirms an open session, not that the destination falls within the PAYG area.

I accept this needs the criminal test in Byelaw 18(1) to actually import the NRCoT definition rather than operate independently of it, and that's the point that would need to be established rather than assumed if this ever went before a court. Which is why I said earlier this needs to be tested. But given how tightly the Byelaws and the NRCoT are drafted to work together, I don't think that's a large leap, and I'd want to see the specific wording of Byelaw 18(1) tested against NRCoT 6.1 before concluding there's no offence here at all.

Watershed said:

It was, in principle, legitimate to issue Penalty Fares; by and large, that is how those issues were dealt with and many of them will have been paid.

For those that were left unpaid, some will undoubtedly have been prosecuted but just because this happened, it does not mean those prosecutions were legitimately brought. Indeed we know that the vast majority of rail prosecutions are not defended, and for many the defendant doesn’t even enter a plea at all.

We know that the railway brought thousands of RoRA prosecutions improperly under the SJPN procedure, with it taking years for this to be challenged. It is not at all implausible that something similar happened with Stansted. Indeed if I were a lawyer looking for the next case along the lines of the SJPN fiasco, it’s exactly the kind of case I’d be looking into.

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On the SJPN comparison, I'd separate that out from Stansted. The SJPN scandal was TOCs using SJP to prosecute RORA offences when SJP wasn't permitted for RORA matters at all. That's a specific procedural failure tied to RORA. If Stansted prosecutions were brought under Byelaw 18 rather than RORA, that failure doesn't carry across, since there's no equivalent bar on using SJP for a Byelaw offence. So the comparison only holds if Stansted RORA prosecutions were also run through SJP.

Puffing Devil said:

I think the Byelaw 18(1) test needs to be read alongside the NRCoT, not in isolation from it.

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I quite agree. "Valid ticket" has to be based on the contractual validity of the ticket.

Puffing Devil said:

NRCoT 6.1 defines a Ticket as including a validated contactless PAYG card "where accepted", and says you must hold a valid Ticket or authority to travel "for the journey you intend to make" before boarding.Condition 13.4 then treats travel beyond the destination permitted by your ticket as travelling without a valid ticket for that additional part of the journey.

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The bolded part (which I agree is an accurate summary of the NRCoT) makes it clear that overtravelling does not invalidate the ticket you held for the first part of your journey. And the validity at the point of boarding is all that Byelaws 18(1) is concerned with.

Therefore, whilst the NRCoT state that you should buy a ticket valid for your entire journey before boarding, that is not actually the legal position. There is no penalty for buying an extension ticket (or excess) after you have started your journey, provided it is before your ticket expires.

The NRCoT do not say that an otherwise valid ticket becomes completely invalid just because you have the intention of travelling beyond its validity. Such a provision would clearly be unworkable and unenforceable, and it is not in the Conditions.

Puffing Devil said:

These conditions exist precisely to define what "valid" means for the purposes of the Byelaws. The Byelaw doesn't operate in a vacuum with its own freestanding definition of a ticket. It borrows the definition from the NRCoT

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I agree.

Puffing Devil said:

and the NRCoT is explicit that validity is tied to the journey intended, not just the act of tapping in at a station where PAYG happens to be accepted.

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I disagree. If your proposition were true, then the OP should have been penalised when their contactless card was inspected before Bletchley, surely?

In reality there would have been no grounds for doing so, and any Penalty Fare issued for a future intended act of overtravelling would be wide open to appeal. As such I am struggling to see how you can suggest that the contactless card is a Schroedinger's ticket - simultaneously valid for the purposes of an onboard inspection and the Penalty Fares Regulations, and yet not valid for the purposes of the Byelaws?

Puffing Devil said:

The OP's card was a valid authority to travel as far as Bletchley

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How can something that's a "valid authority to travel" simultaneously not be a valid ticket when boarding? I'm sure you can see the contradiction in that.

Puffing Devil said:

It was never a valid authority to travel to MKC, because PAYG simply isn't accepted for that leg. So the position at the moment of boarding wasn't "valid ticket, becomes invalid later." It was "never valid for the journey being undertaken," with the mid-journey scan not curing that

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The fact that it was accepted as valid during the mid-journey inspection confirms the contactless card acted as a valid ticket, up to Bletchley. Quite clearly the OP would have been penalised at that point already if it had not been a valid ticket.

Puffing Devil said:

because the scan only confirms an open session, not that the destination falls within the PAYG area.

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A PAYG inspection of a contactless card only confirms that it is not in the cached list of blocked cards. The verification of whether it was touched in (and charging of a failed inspection penalty if it was not) happens at the end of the day by the TfL backend system after all touches are reconciled.

Nothing particularly turns on this but it's worth noting.

Puffing Devil said:

I accept this needs the criminal test in Byelaw 18(1) to actually import the NRCoT definition rather than operate independently of it, and that's the point that would need to be established rather than assumed if this ever went before a court. Which is why I said earlier this needs to be tested. But given how tightly the Byelaws and the NRCoT are drafted to work together, I don't think that's a large leap, and I'd want to see the specific wording of Byelaw 18(1) tested against NRCoT 6.1 before concluding there's no offence here at all.

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I agree that there is no other sensible way of working out what is a "valid ticket" and I hardly think it takes case law to accept the proposition that the NRCoT determines the validity.

Puffing Devil said:

On the SJPN comparison, I'd separate that out from Stansted. The SJPN scandal was TOCs using SJP to prosecute RORA offences when SJP wasn't permitted for RORA matters at all. That's a specific procedural failure tied to RORA. If Stansted prosecutions were brought under Byelaw 18 rather than RORA, that failure doesn't carry across, since there's no equivalent bar on using SJP for a Byelaw offence. So the comparison only holds if Stansted RORA prosecutions were also run through SJP.

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The point I'm making is not about whether it is a procedural failure or a substantive misuse/misapplication of the law. It's that even widespread miscarriages of justice can take a long time to be detected and put right. See also the Post Office scandal amongst many others. So just because uncontested or poorly defended prosecutions may have been successful, that is no guarantee of them being legitimate. S

The flaw in the "Schrödinger's ticket" argument is that you're confusing the railway's inability to catch someone mid-journey with the journey actually being legal. When an inspector grips a card mid-journey before Bletchley, the scanner flashes green simply because the passenger is performing an undeclared journey inside a valid PAYG territory; the technology cannot read minds or predict where a passenger intends to step off. However, the second a destination is introduced into the equation, the position changes entirely. If that inspector scans the card before Bletchley and asks the passenger for their final destination, and the passenger states Milton Keynes Central, a Byelaw 18 offence is complete. By declaring an intent to complete a journey to a non-PAYG station using only a contactless card, the passenger has openly admitted that they boarded the train without holding a means of ticketing that covers the journey they are actively making. Likewise, when they arrive at MKC with only a PAYG scanned card, the offence is complete.

Puffing Devil said:

The flaw in the "Schrödinger's ticket" argument is that you're confusing the railway's inability to catch someone mid-journey with the journey actually being legal. When an inspector grips a card mid-journey before Bletchley, the scanner flashes green simply because the passenger is performing an undeclared journey inside a valid PAYG territory; the technology cannot read minds or predict where a passenger intends to step off. However, the second a destination is introduced into the equation, the position changes entirely. If that inspector scans the card before Bletchley and asks the passenger for their final destination, and the passenger states Milton Keynes Central, a Byelaw 18 offence is complete. By declaring an intent to complete a journey to a non-PAYG station using only a contactless card, the passenger has openly admitted that they boarded the train without holding a means of ticketing that covers the journey they are actively making. Likewise, when they arrive at MKC with only a PAYG scanned card, the offence is complete.

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Surely if the passenger boarding intending to alight at bletchley but later changed their mind and had not yet bought their new ticket, no offence would have been committed? I don't think answering "Milton Keynes" to "where are you going" is sufficient evidence to prove that the passenger was planning to go to Milton Keynes at the moment they boarded the train.

What if they arrived at Milton Keynes with only a PAYG card because they fell asleep on the train? I don't think being at Milton Keynes with only a PAYG card is sufficient to prove the passenger had no valid ticket when the boarded within the PAYG area.

AndyMX said:

I tapped on an didnt realized tapping out of outside zone. Berkhamstead to Milton Keynes central. Have had 3 appeals rejected.

Have had 3 appeals rejected. I did not delibrately evade paying for travel.

A ticket inspector scaned my card and was ok. 2 Stops lated at MK my card was rejected at the barriers
where inforcement officers gave me a ticket. They siad i should be ok as I didnt know. This was my first
time on this route. This was a genuine mistake.

I am thinking to defend in court should i get a summonds. I am inside 14 days to pay still.

Many thanks for any advise.

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You have said that you are determined to go to court; such being the case, you can defend any prosecution on the grounds that it is statute barred by Regulation 11(3) of the the Penalty Fares Regulations 2018: https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2018/366/regulation/11; since you appealed and since the PF was not cancelled within 21 days. Virtually all lawyers agree that the non-binding opinion otherwise by the Chief Magistrate is plainly wrong and contrary to the clear wording of the statute; this has been discussed extensively on the forum previously.

Nevertheless, it is quite possible that the TOC will prosecute regardless, and you don't have a underlying substantive defence beyond the- IMO, very strong- argument that the prosecution is statute barred. However, you might need to hire a solicitor to present this argument competently, and this would almost certainly cost more than simply paying the PF, and with no realistic prospect of recovering this solicitor fee from the TOC even if the prosecution is indeed dismissed.

However, if they prosecute and lose because the PF was indeed statute barred, you would owe nothing civilly, by virtue of Regulation 11(1).

As to any civil claim, it is not certain that the TOC in question will want to sue for a relatively small amount, given that costs are capped on the small claims track, unless a party is considered to have acted unreasonably.

However, if they do sue, you would likely need to find an as-yet undisclosed technical reason why the PF is invalid, as I see no obvious reason why a claim would fail, and you would likely be looking at perhaps £200 in costs on top of the PF- more if you were considered to have acted unreasonably.

Thank you all for your input. I have a few days to decide waht to do.

Whats getting me is its a genuine mistake. Ive mostly travelled around London and you just assume. Ive never evaded travel
in my life.
If I was rich I would use this as a test case.

But maybe I will pay and move on.

AndyMX said:

Thank you all for your input. I have a few days to decide waht to do.

Whats getting me is its a genuine mistake. Ive mostly travelled around London and you just assume. Ive never evaded travel
in my life.
If I was rich I would use this as a test case.

But maybe I will pay and move on.

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Assuming you received a Penalty Fare Notice, that is precisely the result of your genuine mistake. It is much better than receiving a letter threatening prosecution. Yes, it may seem an unfair sum, but that is how it is dealt with. There unfortunately will have been posters at the station you boarded which tell you where contactless is valid from/to, and that a penalty fares scheme is in operation with the TOC in question.

Don't be distracted by the debate here that is largely theoretical.

For the last time though, if you want further assistance you need to show us the Penalty Fare and your appeals and the responses (to consider how likely it would be enforceable in court), and your next step in the process would be Transport Focus.

Moderator Note - discussion about the validity of contactless when the journey continues outside the PAYG zone has been split into a new thread:

https://www.railforums.co.uk/threads/discussion-about-the-validity-of-contactless-payg-where-the-journey-is-outside-the-payg-area.304359/