GTR intention to prosecute: help with draft response

[jasmine1]

Hello,
I have received a letter from GTR notifying me of an intention to take my case to court and offering an opportunity to tell us what happened from your point of view. Letter attached and some detail below. I’d really appreciate any advice or feedback on the draft response I’ve written below.

Context:
I travel from my local station (Biggleswade) to London St Pancras for work, most often requiring an anytime day return without any railcards. Up until the point of this incident, I regularly purchased my ticket via the Trainline - preference to have the ticket on my phone and often a long queue for the machines during rush hour. On this particular day, I remember searching for the ticket on Trainline and boarding the train as usual. There aren’t barriers at this station, so was able to board the train without noticing my error: When I got to St Pancras, went to get my ticket ready for the barriers and realised I hadn’t clicked through the purchase. I immediately bought the right ticket for the full journey and at the gates was stopped by a staff member (there were several there checking tickets manually that morning). The inspector informed me that it wasn’t a valid ticket and took a statement, where I explained it was a genuine error and I hadn’t intended to evade buying a ticket. I don’t have a copy of the statement from the morning but know I said something along the lines of forgot to finalise the purchase, genuine error (as this is what happened!). I have since mostly stopped using Trainline and purchase paper tickets from the station, to try and avoid this error again.
Next steps:
I’d like to respond and as for out of court settlement. My draft is below. I have seen on a few different threads here to keep it succinct - so lots of the context above is not there.

Draft response:
Dear Sir/Madam,
I am writing in response to case reference XX, in relation to a journey taken on XX between Biggleswade and London St Pancras International on 28th April 2025.

I would firstly like to express my sincere apologies for not having a valid ticket for travel on this journey, and for the additional administrative work and cost my error has caused.

On 28th April 2025, I boarded the train at 08.01 from Biggleswade having thought I had purchased a valid ticket via The Trainline app. Shortly before the train arrived in St Pancras, I opened the app to prepare my ticket for the barriers and realised I had not completed the purchase properly. This was a genuine error however, I understand the severity of not having a full, valid ticket ahead of boarding the train.

As soon as I had signal on the platform, I purchased a ticket for the full journey I needed to make that day, before proceeding to the barriers near platforms A/B (please see a copy of this ticket attached to this correspondence). Whilst I understand that this does not constitute a valid ticket for travel on this journey, I hope it goes some way to demonstrating that I genuinely did not intend to evade the fare on this date and sought to rectify my error as soon as I had realised.

I deeply regret this error and understand the importance of always paying the right fare. To avoid an error like this again, I have moved to purchasing paper tickets from the station, rather than using an app.

I would like to ask if you will consider an out of court settlement to bring this matter to a swift resolution. I am willing to pay any outstanding fare costs, penalty fare and cover any administrative fees incurred in dealing with this matter.

Thank you for your time in reviewing this case.

Yours sincerely,
XX

 

[John R]

Welcome to the forum you never wanted to join.

A minor point, you appear to have duplicated the date of travel in your first paragraph, albeit replaced by XX in one instance. And then repeat it again in the third paragraph. Once is enough.

There are a couple of points which are not technically correct, (ie reference to a penalty fare in the penultimate paragraph - you can't be issued one now), but an investigator will not be checking for 100% accuracy on such points, more that you are apologetic and promise not to do it again.

One point you might change though is here:-

I hope it goes some way to demonstrating that I genuinely did not intend to evade the fare on this date and sought to rectify my error as soon as I had realised.

I wonder whether a better way of demonstrating that is to point to your track record of purchases from Biggleswade to St Pancras, all purchased before departure (assuming that is the case), as buying a ticket on arrival at a barriered station is not in itself proof of not having an intention to purchase a ticket.

 

[rmHawk765]

as buying a ticket on arrival at a barriered station is not in itself proof of not having an intention to purchase a ticket

You mean not having an intention to not purchase a ticket?

 

[John R]

You mean not having an intention to not purchase a ticket?

Yes! Thanks for the spot!

 

[rmHawk765]

Yes! Thanks for the spot!

No worries, a bit pedantic but does matter here.

 

[jasmine1]

Thank you both for your responses - I will amend to include my purchase history for the rest of the year, rather than the one ticket that wasn’t valid

Appreciate your support immensely! It is a stressful process to navigate, so glad this forum exists

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 26 Aug 2025 ==

I wonder whether a better way of demonstrating that is to point to your track record of purchases from Biggleswade to St Pancras, all purchased before departure (assuming that is the case), as buying a ticket on arrival at a barriered station is not in itself proof of not having an intention to purchase a ticket

I wonder whether a better way of demonstrating that is to point to your track record of purchases from Biggleswade to St Pancras, all purchased before departure (assuming that is the case), as buying a ticket on arrival at a barriered station is not in itself proof of not having an intention to purchase a ticket.

On this point, how much detail is too much? I can demonstrate regular purchase history, as I travel to London for work relatively regularly - however, the records are a little hard to follow, as they are across a few different records (bank statement, credit card statement and Trainline app) and show different ticket types (e.g. I buy the flexi season ticket at times when I need to travel more, I use the train for journeys other than this route to work, etc.). I also don’t have a set day or time to travel to work, so isn’t a clear record like same train and route every Tuesday for the whole year.

Keen to demonstrate that I do purchase the correct tickets usually - but conscious that too much info or info that is hard to process might work against me.

Have attached the records I have to demonstrate what I mean.

Any additional thoughts would be greatly appreciated!

 

[John R]

I would just point to your Trainline account, and note that you have a consistent track record of purchasing tickets if they look. It doesn't remove the fact that this time you didn't travel with a valid ticket, but hopefully it helps persuade them that it was a genuine mistake, and at the very least that you are not a serial evader.

 

[jasmine1]

I would just point to your Trainline account, and note that you have a consistent track record of purchasing tickets if they look. It doesn't remove the fact that this time you didn't travel with a valid ticket, but hopefully it helps persuade them that it was a genuine mistake, and at the very least that you are not a serial evader.

Thank you for the swift reply. I have updated my response and copied below. I’d appreciate you checking the framing of the sentence in bold - I want to make sure I convey that I understand the importance of paying the right fare and usually do this but not sure if this wording is quite right, given I haven’t paid the right fare on this occasion.

Thanks again for your support!





Dear Sir/Madam,

I am writing in response to case reference XX, in relation to a journey taken between Biggleswade and London St Pancras International on 28th April 2025.


I would firstly like to express my sincere apologies for not having a valid ticket for travel on this journey, and for the additional administrative work and cost my error has caused.


On 28th April 2025, I boarded the train at 08.01 from Biggleswade having thought I had purchased a valid ticket via The Trainline app. Shortly before the train arrived at St Pancras International, I opened the app to prepare my ticket for the barriers and realised I had not completed the purchase properly. This was a genuine error however, I understand the severity of not having a full, valid ticket ahead of boarding the train.

As soon as I realised my error, I purchased an anytime day return ticket from Biggleswade to London St Pancras International. I have attached a copy of this to my response for your records. However, I understand that this is not a valid ticket for travel, as it was purchased after boarding the train.

I have also attached here my records from the trainline app for 2025, which shows regular purchase of an anytime day return for this route, bought ahead of boarding the train. Whilst I understand that this does not mitigate this instance of travel without a valid ticket, I hope it goes some way to demonstrating that this was an unintentional error, and that I understand and respect the importance of paying the right fare.


I deeply regret this error and have learnt from this experience. I am fully committed to purchasing the correct ticket ahead of any journey I make and now primarily buy paper tickets at the departure station, to mitigate the risk of entering the platform or boarding the train workout completing an online purchase properly, as I did on this date.


I would like to ask if you will consider an out of court settlement to bring this matter to a swift resolution. I understand that any settlement would need to cover the administration costs in dealing with the case as well as any fare you require.


Thank you for your time in reviewing this case. Please let me know if you need any further information.

Yours sincerely,
XX

 

[John R]

That paragraph sounds perfect to me.

 

[jasmine1]

That paragraph sounds perfect to me.

Thanks again for your support on this matter.

I had a very quick response with agreement to settle out of court for a fee of £81.30. The fare was £41.40 for the ticket that was invalid. Sharing here in case helpful for any other queries you might have.

Have of course quickly paid this fee to bring it to a close.

 

[WesternLancer]

Thanks again for your support on this matter.

I had a very quick response with agreement to settle out of court for a fee of £81.30. The fare was £41.40 for the ticket that was invalid. Sharing here in case helpful for any other queries you might have.

Have of course quickly paid this fee to bring it to a close.

Thanks for updating - it is indeed helpful for others to see in future.

That looks like a good result with a lower than typical settlement fee.

Keep copies of proof of payment of course, and be prepared to keep that long term (over a year). Keep copies of all the letters / email too I suspect - unlikely you will ever need them but better to have them than not if you ever did.

 

[Chrius56000]

. . .Another excellent result, illustrating that G.T.R., along with G.W.R., deal fairly with the issue if you engage with them promptly and are sincere with them regarding your fault or error!