Chiltern Railways Intent to prosecute

[dumbassbrokie]

Greetings all, I am an above 16yo and I got caught not paying for a full fare for my journey which started on a TfL station and ended on a chiltern railway station. As the ticket prices are insane for "adults" and I have to take a train to get to school which is very far away, I took the admitedly rather stupid decision to take pay only for part of the journey as I can get onto chiltern railways wihtout a ticket.
I bought the tickets online via trainpal. The account isnt registered in my own or anyone elses name (random silly name) but the email is one that I own but it also is not in my name. But this was the email I gave to the ticket officer. This was a few months ago and I just got a letter sometime this week (intentionally vague). I obviously do not want to have a criminal record as that will cause me great issues with university and future jobs and so I need some help in formatting a letter in response to chiltern to settle this out of court. I am able to scrounge together from family in order to pay any fines but I am freaking out rn. When talking to the officer I did admit that I had been doing this for quite some time (cant remember how long i said) but he did have brokenish english so i may have been mistaken in what his question was tbh.
Any help is greatly appreciated and although I am sorry I had to do something this and havent done it since, but I am still worried.

 

[WesternLancer]

Greetings all, I am an above 16yo and I got caught not paying for a full fare for my journey which started on a TfL station and ended on a chiltern railway station. As the ticket prices are insane for "adults" and I have to take a train to get to school which is very far away, I took the admitedly rather stupid decision to take pay only for part of the journey as I can get onto chiltern railways wihtout a ticket.
I bought the tickets online via trainpal. The account isnt registered in my own or anyone elses name (random silly name) but the email is one that I own but it also is not in my name. But this was the email I gave to the ticket officer. This was a few months ago and I just got a letter sometime this week (intentionally vague). I obviously do not want to have a criminal record as that will cause me great issues with university and future jobs and so I need some help in formatting a letter in response to chiltern to settle this out of court. I am able to scrounge together from family in order to pay any fines but I am freaking out rn. When talking to the officer I did admit that I had been doing this for quite some time (cant remember how long i said) but he did have brokenish english so i may have been mistaken in what his question was tbh.
Any help is greatly appreciated and although I am sorry I had to do something this and havent done it since, but I am still worried.

How old are you? If under 18 get a 16-17 saver railcard as iirc it reduces fares to child rate if you are eligible age.

Ref what you did they will investigate all your on line purchase and use your digital fingerprints to detect all the past evasion. They will want paying for legitimate tickets worth of money for that. It won’t be a £100 type penalty fare sum you will have seen on warning posters I'm afraid.

Between which stations have you travelled without a valid ticket?

 

[dumbassbrokie]

How old are you? If under 18 get a 16-17 saver railcard as iirc it reduces fares to child rate if you are eligible age.

Ref what you did they will investigate all your on line purchase and use your digital fingerprints to detect all the past evasion. They will want paying for legitimate tickets worth of money for that. It won’t be a £100 type penalty fare sum you will have seen on warning posters I'm afraid.

Between which stations have you travelled without a valid ticket?

Harrow and Aylesbury are the stations and I am above 18 year old so I bought the correct above 18 ticket, I bought tickets halfway instead of the whole way

 

[ANDREW_D_WEBB]

If you are in 6th form / Year 13 speak to your school about whether you qualify for the bursary - this will help with travel costs moving forward. If at uni speak to the Students Union both for advice on hardship funds and possible free legal advice.

 

[WesternLancer]

Harrow and Aylesbury are the stations and I am above 18 year old so I bought the correct above 18 ticket, I bought tickets halfway instead of the whole way

If you have a look at other threads involving Chiltern trains you will get an idea of what to do.

Have a look for posts from forum expert @Hadders who often posts an outline guidance of how to frame your response which will give you a good idea of what you will need to write. You can draft it up a post your draft here for people to help you get it as good as it can be.

 

[dumbassbrokie]

This is a draft of the letter I intend on sending to chiltern railways. Below, I have added the letter from CR that I received.

//LETTER//
Dear Chiltern Railways,
I NAME am writing to you concerning the notice of
prosecution that I have received. I will like to appologise for my actions and I will like to assure you that I greatly regret said actions of avoiding the correct railfare. I have learned from this and would like to sincerely promise to never partake in such illegal and immoral activities again.

I wish to ask from you to generously grant me with leniency and the ability to write my wrongs in this matter and allow for me to pay for all fares that I avoided including any and all fines and admistrative costs due to this regretable event and I hope that we are able to reach an settlement outside of court.

I would like to assure you that I complied fully with the enforment officer and I assure my full compliance in all procedings according to this matter.

I hope that we are able to reach a settlement and that I am able to correct my poor choices and again I would like to genuinely appologise for my actions.

Yours faithfully,
NAME
//LETTER//

I would be most grateful for any feedback I can get on this letter. Thanks to your kind suggestions to check out the member Hadders' page, I have written this in styles he has recomended.

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

Btw I have left school now. On a gap year, this was on a few days after my a-level exams when i went back to give my teachers some gifts and to say thank you.

 

[WesternLancer]

This is a draft of the letter I intend on sending to chiltern railways. Below, I have added the letter from CR that I received.

//LETTER//
Dear Chiltern Railways,
I NAME am writing to you concerning the notice of
prosecution that I have received. I will like to appologise for my actions and I will like to assure you that I greatly regret said actions of avoiding the correct railfare. I have learned from this and would like to sincerely promise to never partake in such illegal and immoral activities again.

I wish to ask from you to generously grant me with leniency and the ability to write my wrongs in this matter and allow for me to pay for all fares that I avoided including any and all fines and admistrative costs due to this regretable event and I hope that we are able to reach an settlement outside of court.

I would like to assure you that I complied fully with the enforment officer and I assure my full compliance in all procedings according to this matter.

I hope that we are able to reach a settlement and that I am able to correct my poor choices and again I would like to genuinely appologise for my actions.

Yours faithfully,
NAME
//LETTER//

I would be most grateful for any feedback I can get on this letter. Thanks to your kind suggestions to check out the member Hadders' page, I have written this in styles he has recomended.

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

Btw I have left school now. On a gap year, this was on a few days after my a-level exams when i went back to give my teachers some gifts and to say thank you.

I would alter the tone of your end part (the key request of what you want) slightly

for example

'I would be most grateful if you would be prepared to allow me to settle this matter without the need for court action and I hope you could consider this request sympathetically'

You could consider buying a Railcard that is applicable for your age (16-25 Railcard perhaps?) so as to legitimately reduce the cost of fares, which you could buy and then also include mentioning that in the letter to show something you have actively done to reduce the costs of fares without evading them - see the choice of cards here

National Rail Railcards | National Rail

Get 1/3 off your train tickets with a Railcard. From children to seniors, there is a Railcard to suit everyone. Plus information on regional railcards and other forms of concessionary travel

www.nationalrail.co.uk

 

[dumbassbrokie]

Hi people, I just want to ask if chiltern will genuinely try to prosecute me? I am genuinely terrified of getting a criminal record and i actually am sorry i did something like this, i wish i had known about the bursary system when i was in school. I have sent my genuine and sincere apology letter and request not to prosecute me to the Fraud@chilternrailways.co.uk email and now im just waiting. I have the ability now to pay for everything and i hope chiltern takes mercy on me. But i have to know, will they just go and prosecute me anyways? I cant have a criminal record, it will genuinely ruin my life and so this has me losing sleep.

 

[Hadders]

Chiltern are entitled to prosecute you but normally they offer an out of court settlement to people who co-operate with them and who haven't come to their attention before.

 

[WesternLancer]

Hi people, I just want to ask if chiltern will genuinely try to prosecute me? I am genuinely terrified of getting a criminal record and i actually am sorry i did something like this, i wish i had known about the bursary system when i was in school. I have sent my genuine and sincere apology letter and request not to prosecute me to the Fraud@chilternrailways.co.uk email and now im just waiting. I have the ability now to pay for everything and i hope chiltern takes mercy on me. But i have to know, will they just go and prosecute me anyways? I cant have a criminal record, it will genuinely ruin my life and so this has me losing sleep.

Unfortunately no one can give you a 100% guarantee that they won't prosecute you - BUT - having observed many of these threads over time the vast majority of them where people follow advice on here don't get prosecuted and instead get offered an out of court settlement which means no criminal record. (This is not the case with Transport for London fare evasion where their standard procedure is to prosecute in almost every case - but you are not dealing with TfL). Even if your 1st e-mail is not successful you can have other chances to request a settlment.

So I think there is a very strong probability that you can resolve this out of court, even though it involves deliberate evasion on your part, and that you say you have done this on a number of occasions.

If your own plea to them does not work, there would still be a chance that you could for example, seek the help of a solicitor with this - tho that comes at a cost and also no guarantee they can prevent prosecution either.

In the unlikely event that they did prosecute though, for something like this be assured it will not ruin your life or university access - there will be people studying at universities who have had convictions for things like TfL fare evasion, and indeed more serious things. There are good sources of info on line about what to do if you have a conviction, how to declare it, and how to make sure it does not ruin your life - but there is no need to get drawn into that at this stage. Hopefully you will get a positive result from your e-mail to Chiltern and you can then put this behind you.

As a young person / or student there are legitimate ways to reduce your costs of train travel - eg railcards etc - make sure you use them to help with the costs of it.

 

[30907]

A little detail: with a 16-25 railcard you pay a minimum of £12 travelling before 10.00 - the return fare is above that limit, so it will be worth getting the railcard.