Just spoke with a solicitor. The christmas period makes things difficult so I may ask for an extension of time (which apparently they are likely to grant). From his judgement, there is 60% of going to court. He is well knowledge in tfl as this is the main cases he deals with. He does cost £1k+. I’m just thinking if it is worth spending the money on him or if i should write my own letter if there really is a 60% of going to court
It really depends on how much the chances of avoiding a criminal record matters to you.
As something of an oversimplification*
- if you don't employ a solicitor this will go to court, you will be convicted and you will have a criminal record. You will incur the fine, court costs and compensation to TfL.
- if you do employ a solicitor it might not go to court, but you will have to pay your solicitor's bill. If the solicitor cannot keep it out of court, I would expect you to be convicted and you will have a criminal record and have to pay the fine, court costs and TfL's compensation as well as your solicitor's bill.
So the first thing to note is that there doesn't seem to be any way out of this without having to pay something to someone. And the next is that using a solicitor is not guaranteed to keep it out of court.
But the next thing to ask is how much damage would a criminal record do to your life? The quick answer may well be 'not much'. If you can avoid having a criminal record that's obviously a good thing, but you need to know that there is the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act. That Act says that for most purposes you don't have to tell anyone about a conviction after a certain length of time - and I think that I am right to say that for fare dodging you don't have to mention it after a year (and sometimes less).
So after a year, most of the time you won't have to say that you were convicted of fare dodging. There are some exceptions - a lot of them are around jobs when you're in a position of trust, which includes things like being an accountants or a lawyer or working in banking, and because the Act doesn't apply abroad it may mean that you have to go to the American Embassy or Australian High Commission if you want a visa to go to those countries. But even for those exceptions (or in the year after being convicted) you might well find that it's embarrassing to have to admit that you were convicted in court, but there's no other consequence.
In short, for most people getting a criminal record for fare dodging is expensive - but it needn't be life changing. So before deciding to pay a lawyer, think hard about what you do in your life and what you will want to do: it might be that getting a criminal record won't wreck your life after all.
*While we have seen some cases where a final warning was issued, I think these were all cases where a solicitor was used. But of course it can't be clear of the use of a solicitor was the decisive fact. But I am taking this to be the case to try to give clear advice - and as I go on to say, avoiding a criminal record may not be absolutely essential for the OP, so this simplification doesn't necessarily destroy the logic I am following.
