Hi everyone,
I am looking for some urgent advice regarding a GTR Prosecutions case. I am a full-time Sixth Form student, I do not have a job, and I currently have no income.
I was offered an out-of-court settlement for case reference. Because I am completely broke, I emailed GTR Prosecutions to sincerely apologize and ask if I could pay the settlement in £15 monthly installments, attaching my bank statement as proof of hardship.
They replied today with a standard rejection stating: "As explained in my previous email we cannot except part payments or install payment plans. The out of court settlement offered to you will need to be paid in full."
I am terrified of this going to court because I cannot afford the lump sum and I am incredibly worried about getting a criminal record.
I have just replied to them asking for a temporary 14-day hold on the case while I try to figure out a way to secure a loan from family, but I don't know if they will grant it.
The original fine was for not showing a ticket as phone my phone was dead, and when i tried to appeal at the website nothing loaded so i gave up (stupid i know) i brought a childs ticket so its kinda useless to show proof anyways… SO UMM what do i do
Welcome -
a few questions first if you feel able to answer them:
1) What sort of sum are we talking about? can you give us an idea. Ideally with a breakdown of how much is for the fare owed, the admin fee etc.
2) When was the offence (ie when they caught you - exact date please if possible)
3) How old are you? Under or over 18 (and if over 18 how old were you when this happened), or over 16 but under 18 etc
4) Do they know you had a child ticket? (it's much better if they do not know this - buying a child ticket looks like deliberate evasion - having a dead phone looks like bad organisation - the former is worse than the latter...)
A few points worth noting (if for no other reason in case they are of help to you with family discussions that I think you are going to need to have)
- GTR tend to offer the lowest settlements in the rail industry for this sort of thing (hence my asking how much they want, to check that)
- If the settlement out of court is not paid it
will escalate to a court prosecution if you are over 18 (not sure what happens if you are under 18....but someone here will)
- The railway companies don't do payments by instalment (well the only one I can recall offering one that got mentioned here was West Midlands Trains) - this is because they are not in the business of chasing up debtors with payment plans who might pay the first installment and then default etc etc
- If you want to go back to them again (and there is a risk in doing so) - I think you would have to offer some decent money now - as much as you can - how much might that be? Realistically it would need to be a significant chunk of the total they are requesting (eg probably a fair bit more than £15)
-
But the risk to you is they could just say at any time - 'OK forget it, were going to court instead - see you in court' - they are in their rights to do that
- The
upside of it going to court is that you can pay the court in installments! (they have bailiffs etc to enforce the payment of the court fine etc if you miss payments) - so you do not have to pay the court a lump sum, if that was your only fear
BUT the downside is
- The money that will end up being owed to the court will be more than this settlement offer I feel pretty confident in saying (if guilty of the offence which I fear you are it would be a court fine + a 'victim surcharge' + the fare owed + costs)
- and of course you get a criminal record albeit one for a fairly minor offence (however, for someone at the start of their working life or looking at university etc maybe I would say far better not to have a criminal record than to have one).
Only you know your family and how they will react - but my initial advice would be to talk all this through with your family - most people will want to support their relatives if they can (Ok there will be exceptions of course and for some families money may simply not be available - which I understand) - but even if you fear a parent would kick your backside for this, would an aunt / uncle / grandparent / older sibling etc be more sympathetic to lending you the money?
Or even trusted friend (but
under no circumstances go to any sort of money lender that isn't your bank - better to go to court than to engage with dodgy money lenders)
or
Do you have a credit card? If you paid with that you would effectively have to pay back the credit card in installments (but again it will cost you more over the repayment period)
Maybe this coming weekend is the time to see if you can talk to family and make a plan?
Maybe the advice above or any other advice you want to ask about can help you prepare for that family discussion? If so ask here.
Most people who come here for our help are desperate to avoid court and desperate to get an out of court settlement offer - you have achieved that, avoiding it from slipping through your fingers should be your objective if at all possible.
If you opted for, or end up with the court alternative, people here will help you prepare for that to get the least worst outcome possible from that scenario. But you are not facing that yet so one thing at a time.
