FCC Court Summons

[saeidpp]

Hi Guys

I am in a bit of pickle and want to see if anyone can help me please.
I have been summoned to appear in court to "answer the following information" I failed to hand over a ticket for inspection and verification.

short of it is that I didnt have a valid ticket. I left my wallet at home. I always buy season tickets and when i said to the inspector i can pop to my car (at the station to pay for the fine) he refused. I now have a court date in April and I do not want to go to court. It was really unfortunate that I didnt have a valid ticket. I buy weekly/daily tickets based on where I travel from and am a law abiding citizen and do everything by the books. I do not want to get a criminal record. Any advise is appreciated?

The inspector did not let me go to my car (parked in the station carpark) to bring my spare credit card to pay for it

any help pleaseee?

 

[142094]

What does the letter say exactly? We need to know the specific details (including stations/TOC) so we can help.

What I will say is that being a law-abiding citizen the rest of the time will not make your situation looked upon any differently. If you had forgotten your season ticket the terms of the ticket say that you have to buy a ticket for that journey (although you can claim it back if you can prove you have a season ticket).

 

[First class]

Hi Guys

I am in a bit of pickle and want to see if anyone can help me please.
I have been summoned to appear in court to "answer the following information" I failed to hand over a ticket for inspection and verification.

short of it is that I didnt have a valid ticket. I left my wallet at home. I always buy season tickets and when i said to the inspector i can pop to my car (at the station to pay for the fine) he refused. I now have a court date in April and I do not want to go to court. It was really unfortunate that I didnt have a valid ticket. I buy weekly/daily tickets based on where I travel from and am a law abiding citizen and do everything by the books. I do not want to get a criminal record. Any advise is appreciated?

The inspector did not let me go to my car (parked in the station carpark) to bring my spare credit card to pay for it

any help pleaseee?

Plead guilty if you didn't have a ticket. Try and write a decent mitigation.

Out of the TOCs control now to be honest, they won't retract a summons. What are they prosecuting you under, Section 5 Regulation of Railways Act 1889 or Railway Byelaw 17/18? I suspect the Section 5 offence because I imagine you had no funds to purchase a ticket when stopped. If this is the case you've not got much of a way out here. You'd probably have to accept the criminal record. Unfortunately, if you had let us know a lot earlier about the incident in question, I would have advised you to write an apology to FCC, but you either ignored their previous letters or didn't respond appropriately if they've decided to move forwards.

If it's your first offence:

Fine around £200-£300
Victim Surcharge £15
Compensation to FCC will be whatever the fare you "evaded" should have been
I believe costs for FCC are £110
Criminal Record

It will cost around £500 max worst case.

Sorry to sound a bit depressing, but it is really late in the day to do much about this. You could ring FCC prosecutions and offer £300 or so to drop the matter, but that is a last ditch effort.

 

[RJ]

Plead guilty if you didn't have a ticket. Try and write a decent mitigation.

Out of the TOCs control now to be honest.

It's not out of their control at all. They could cancel on the morning of the case if they so desired.

As it's FCC, I don't think there's any chance of any leniency unless you have robust proof that you did present a valid ticket at the time. By the sounds of it, they're going for a prosecution under the Railway Byelaw 18.2 which is usually successful as the offence, failure to produce a valid ticket, has usually been committed.

FCC have been known to proceed with the prosecution process against passengers who did nothing wrong until heavy intervention from clued up people forces them to drop the case.

Such a robust policy seems to be the result of pathetic £20 Penalty Fares not being effective in deterring people from travelling without a valid ticket. Think there'll be quite a few more prosecutions and criminal records handed out before the message finally sinks in!

 

[First class]

It's not out of their control at all. They could cancel on the morning of the case if they so desired.

As it's FCC, I don't think there's any chance of any leniency unless you have robust proof that you did present a valid ticket at the time. By the sounds of it, they're going for a prosecution under the Railway Byelaw 18.2 which is usually successful as the offence, failure to produce a valid ticket, has usually been committed.

Such a robust policy seems to be the result of pathetic £20 Penalty Fares not being effective in deterring people from travelling without a valid ticket. Think there'll be quite a few more prosecutions and criminal records handed out before the message finally sinks in!

They can drop the case at court, but why would they? They've spent money on laying the information before the court and a load of admin work, it would not be reasonable to drop the case.

 

[RJ]

They have been reported to give up at the 11th hour see here. However, that's only when they know they haven't got a chance of winning.

For anyone relying on sympathy, goodwill, discretion etc, probably best to reflect on why you had a cavalier attitude to paying the fare when possible/required and accept any prosecution or criminal record as a consequence!

 

[saeidpp]

Thanks for all your comments guys. it was 6th of jan. from moorgate to welham green. i had my wallet in my car which was parked at the starion car park but they refused to let me go and bring it. they didnt even send me any penalty fare notice so i can pay for it within the 21 days. I askes the inspector what happens next and he just said you will hear from us in the next two weeks. i provided all correct information to the inspector. I am more than happy to pay for what ever cost there is but dont get the criminal record. anyone can help me please?

If you guys need any further information i am more than happy to provide. when i get home tonight i will get all the letter details and post it up here.

Thanks

 

[jon0844]

They weren't offering you a penalty fare though!

Now if I lost my season ticket, but only realised afterwards (and with gates, I do wonder how I could not realise, unless I genuinely lost it) then I'd state that fact there and then, and accept a PF and offer to pay whatever necessary. Why I'd have my wallet left in a car, I don't know!

You could even be polite enough to the RPI and hope they're decent enough to check with (whoever necessary) within the TOC to establish whether there was a season ticket registered in your name/address. I guess there's a data protection issue there, and you'd have needed to get your season ticket from that TOC, but I am certainly on their mailing list and with suitable ID I'd at least hope I could provide enough information to stop them prosecuting me.

Can I ask how you got on the train at Moorgate? It's a barriered station. Surely you knew if you had a valid ticket before you travelled? If you had no ticket to Welham Green (which of course isn't gated) then you needed to speak to someone there and then. Sorry if you take this the wrong way, but I'm guessing you got through with another ticket/Oyster and figured you'd chance it - as Welham Green rarely has manual ticket checks.

 

[LexyBoy]

saeidpp - could you clarify whether you held a ticket valid for that day, and if so, what type?

For anyone relying on sympathy, goodwill, discretion etc, probably best to reflect on why you had a cavalier attitude to paying the fare when possible/required and accept any prosecution or criminal record as a consequence!

I think you meant this more generally, but OP has said that they were not able/permitted to pay the fare as they didn't have their wallet on them.

It seems grossly unfair to me that the NRCoC allows a season ticket holder to be refunded a ticket bought, or Penalty Fare Notice issued (at the TOC's discretion) when they had forgotten their season ticket - implicitly acknowledging that people do forget things from time to time - whilst someone forgetting their ticket remains liable to prosecution.

...Not that that helps the OP, as there doesn't seem to be any question that they were unable to show a ticket, nor to pay the fare.

(BTW it's partly for these reasons that I always keep my season separate from my wallet, so I'd be unlikely to misplace both at once).
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---
saeidpp - I realise you may have been simplifying for the sake of clarity, but your first post:

i had my wallet in my car which was parked at the starion car park

is contradicted by your second:

I left my wallet at home. [...]
The inspector did not let me go to my car (parked in the station carpark) to bring my spare credit card to pay for it

I'm inclined to believe your account, but inconsistencies such as this can give the impression that you're not telling the whole story...

I suspect the Section 5 offence because I imagine you had no funds to purchase a ticket when stopped.

I don't claim to be great on the legal side, but if a season ticket were held but not on one's person, would Section 5 be applicable? Surely it could be shown that there was no intent to avoid payment, and indeed that the correct fare had been paid. Bylaw 18 would still apply of course.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

They weren't offering you a penalty fare though!

Now if I lost my season ticket, but only realised afterwards (and with gates, I do wonder how I could not realise, unless I genuinely lost it) then I'd state that fact there and then, and accept a PF and offer to pay whatever necessary.

OP may have been offered a PF, but this offer removed when it became clear they had no way of paying. We would benefit from a fuller account of exactly what happened at both Moorgate and Welham Green.

Why I'd have my wallet left in a car, I don't know!

Well, if you keep your season ticket in your wallet... (In their second post, OP claims the wallet was left at home which is more understandable).

 

[jon0844]

Well, if you keep your season ticket in your wallet... (In their second post, OP claims the wallet was left at home which is more understandable).

Leaving a wallet at home is one thing, and had the OP gone from a gated station - it would have realised and the OP would have been forced to go home and get it, as even buying a new ticket to claim back later wouldn't have been possible.

Now if the ticket was at home, asking to go back to the car to get a spare credit card was pointless and to be fair to the RPI, who is going to walk off railway property with someone who might potentially attack them in the car park?

I presume the OP lives at the Welham Green end, hence the car being there, so how did he get to Moorgate in the first place - and then back? Moorgate would have needed a ticket to enter and exit. Surely, at the very least, the OP would have realised the situation having gone to Moorgate, so had no excuse to try it on coming back - and I'm still intrigued by the fact there must have been some ticket held, but wouldn't that have been in the wallet too?

And, as an (ex-)season ticket holder, I always kept my season in a ticket holder with my ID and other bits and bops, not a wallet. You may see people with ordinary tickets getting them out of their wallet, but I've never yet seen a season ticket holder do so. Only my own personal experience though, obviously.

 

[saeidpp]

Hi guys. thanks for all your help. i manage to write a letter to fcc and explain what happened. I managed to settle the matter and offered them a deal which they accepted. according to a friend of mine i even offered them a little too much as they must accept fair offers to settle the matter outside of court.if they did not accept my offer they would have to pay all court fees if the matter dragged on and went to court. To be honest i am happy this is over .

 

[michael769]

they must accept fair offers to settle the matter outside of court.

In a criminal matter like this they do not have to accept anything they don't want to. If they fell they have evidence to support a prosecution then they are free to proceed no matter what the accused offers.

if they did not accept my offer they would have to pay all court fees if the matter dragged on and went to court.

Only if they lost! If they won you would have to pay the costs along with any fine levied.

Once thing to understand though is that these prosecutions are not anything to do with raising money from the accused. From the TOC's point of view it is all about teaching them a lesson to discourage them from repeating their misdemeanor, and deterring others from trying the same thing.

 

[island]

Thanks for coming back to update us

 

[amcluesent]

according to a friend of mine i even offered them a little too much

RailUK Forum should have a 'sticky' for folks to post what £ was accepted by TOCs, to establish the 'going rate'

 

[MarkyMarkD]

Yes, but the "going rate" will depend on many things surely ... the size of the fare avoided, the mitigating circumstances (if any), etc.

The OP here never explained how he got TO London without a ticket, or how he got into Moorgate for the return journey without a ticket. It is hard to see how he didn't realise when exiting Moorgate (at the end of the outbound journey) that he had no season ticket, and hence he could have purchased a ticket for the return journey which would then have been refunded by showing the season ticket a day or two later. Simples.

If, instead, he knew jolly well he didn't have his season ticket, when boarding the return train, it was rather reckless and it's not surprising that FCC pursued it.

 

[bb21]

There are a number of questions posed by jonmorris0844 that remain unanswered. I am inclined to believe from what is available that there is much more to the story than we have been let on to.

Anyway the matter has been resolved so hopefully the OP will remember it as an expensive lesson for the future.

 

[Fare-Cop]

Hi guys. thanks for all your help. i manage to write a letter to fcc and explain what happened. I managed to settle the matter and offered them £200 which they accepted. according to a friend of mine i even offered them a little too much as they must accept fair offers to settle the matter outside of court.if they did not accept my offer they would have to pay all court fees if the matter dragged on and went to court. To be honest i am happy this is over .

Well, I'm happy for you that you managed to get FCC to settle, but I am always amazed by how complicated people seem to make this by second-guessing what the prosecutor will do.

Firstly, the TOC are not obliged to 'accept a fair offer' to settle out of Court. If there is evidence that an offence has been committed they may proceed to prosecution. There are public interest tests that must be applied, though 'fail to show a (valid) ticket' is a strict liability breach of National Railway Byelaw 18.2 (2005).

If it was a case of a season ticket left at home, you were obliged to buy a ticket for that day and could present it for refund against production of the valid season ticket later.

If the TOC went to prosecution, the only offence likely to succeed would be 'Fail to show' as outlined above.

It would be impossible to show that the traveller intended to avoid a fare (Section 5) if the fare had been paid by that traveller prior to travelling as in the case of season left at home.

 

[saeidpp]

Again, thanks. I am just glad its over and i can move on. learnt a valuable lesson. The matter of fact is on the personal level i think the prosecutors should be more concerned about more dangerous people than an average Jo who forgot his wallet or was just simply running late and did not buy a ticket. of course this is still criminal and what i did was wrong but i am not a danger to the society and should not be tagged as a criminal (i.e criminal record ). People might have different opinion on this and i respect that. but that's the way i see it and again glad to see the end of it.

 

[Fare-Cop]

Again, thanks. I am just glad its over and i can move on. learnt a valuable lesson. The matter of fact is on the personal level i think the prosecutors should be more concerned about more dangerous people than an average Jo who forgot his wallet or was just simply running late and did not buy a ticket. of course this is still criminal and what i did was wrong but i am not a danger to the society and should not be tagged as a criminal (i.e criminal record ). People might have different opinion on this and i respect that. but that's the way i see it and again glad to see the end of it.

I think that there is some generally held misunderstanding in these cases arising because they are heard in a Magistrates Court

If this had gone to prosecution, you would have either pleaded guilty, or been found guilty of the strict liability offence. There would be a conviction recorded and probably a fine etc. although a conditional discharge might well have been given, but this would not make it to PNC as a criminal record.

Although convictions for the more serious offence of fare evasion (S.5 RRA 1889) should make it, there is much inconsistency in the way these are put on PNC and often only show up on an advanced search.

In general terms, conviction for a breach of Byelaw 18 is about as damaging as being fined for a motoring offence. Being convicted for the more serious offence of fare evasion might be a different kettle of fish for some people.