Advice on responding to Southeastern

[cactus2003]

Hello lovely people of the rail forums,

2 weeks ago I was caught with a short ticket at the end of my journey, I was issued an MG11 witness statement and have since recieved a letter from Southeastern stating that the matter has been provisionally authorised for prosecution. I have attached a scan of this letter with personal details redacted.

The incident in question was entirely my fault, I thought I could get away with it and I got caught, the journey was from Charlton to Greenhithe for Bluewater, and the ticket I had bought was from Dartford to Greenhithe for Bluewater. I take full responsibility for my actions here, am ready to be fully co-operative and want to get this sorted as soon as possible.

As far as I understand this is now my opportunity to respond to Southeastern to hopefully settle out of court.

I have written a first draft of my response letter, based on some of the guides I have seen posted here -

"

Dear members of staff at Southeastern Railway (Unsure on this)

Ref number: XXXXXXXXX

I am writing to you to address the incident on XX/XX/XXXX - when asked by staff for my ticket, I produced a short ticket for my journey which is unacceptable, no matter the circumstances. I sincerely apologise for this lapse in judgement, I since understand the implications of my actions and how it affects your fare-paying customers and the company.

I understand it is my responsibility to make sure I have a valid ticket for the entirety of my journey and moving forward will always make sure to have the correct ticket. I have since purchased a railcard, to help with the cost of my travel moving forward - as so this never happens again.

I would be grateful to be ofered an out of court settlement, and if given the opportunity I would like to pay for my full fare, plus any administrative fees Southeastern Railway have incurred.

"

If anybody could give this a read, let me know if there is anything I should change before I send it off that would be massively appreciated - or if there is anything else I should attach here / any more context I should post here.

I was also wondering if it is possible to email my response as opposed to posting it as the post around where I live is mega slow
Thank you so much

 

[30907]

Letter looks reasonable to me!

Belt and braces - email plus post (signed for!)

 

[Hadders]

Welcome to the forum!

The letter looks good to me. The only slight change I would make is to this bit:

I would be grateful to be ofered an out of court settlement, and if given the opportunity I would like to pay for my full fare, plus any administrative fees Southeastern Railway have incurred.

I would say something like 'I wondered if it would be possible to settle this matter without court action. I am prepared to pay the cost of the fare avoided plus your administrative costs in dealing with this issue'.

It's fine to send to the email address Southeastern give in their letter.

 

[cactus2003]

Welcome to the forum!

The letter looks good to me. The only slight change I would make is to this bit:


I would say something like 'I wondered if it would be possible to settle this matter without court action. I am prepared to pay the cost of the fare avoided plus your administrative costs in dealing with this issue'.

It's fine to send to the email address Southeastern give in their letter.

Thank you! I've amended the letter -

I'm sending off my response today and will post the result of my case here

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 2 Dec 2024 ==

Got a speedy response from them, I have been offered an out of court settlement thankfully - I didn’t personally interact much with the forum but the information made readily available by this website and the hard working folks did help massively, so I can only thank everyone here massively. Definitely learnt my lesson forever