My issue is that the fare from Davenport and Stockport is the same, so Northern have not lost any money.
. . .
Can they prosecute if there is no loss to them?
Yes.
The prosecution would be for the criminal offence, irrespective of any amount paid; it would be for:-
- travelling without having previously paid your fare and with intent to avoid payment (an offence which is proved by stating an origin station closer to the destination that the actual, further station, and whilst you had paid 'a fare', you had not paid 'your fare'*).
*A Railway ticket is evidence of a contract being in place to carry a passenger between the named stations, and not a recipt for a consumer sale which might be exchangeable for other goods to the same value. Perhap a more obvious example is that a ticket between A and B would permit a passenger to travel from A to B but would be invalid for a journey from B to A, even though the price would be the same.
Surely any sensible judge, on learning the fare is exactly the same, would laugh this one out of court and admonish Northern for taking it as far as that point?
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As an aside, how did the "ticket inspector" know the OP got on at Davenport anyway?
What makes you think that? The Magistrates would be presented with the evidence to show that the passenger had travelled without a valid ticket for the journey from Davenport, a journey which they have admitted to taking. When considering the evidence against the Act, it is would be hard to reach the conclusion that the Offence was not complete. Costs against the passenger, on the other hand, might be much harder to justify, and for this reason alone I wouldn't be surprised if the Prosecution chose not to bring the matter forward to trail.
s.5 (3)(a) RRA refers to the word "fare" which doesn't seem to be defined in the Act. Are there any legal precedents? I wonder if a good lawyer could argue that the customer had paid his fare?
Yes. As with many of these fundamental questions, they were first asked (and answered) a long time ago:-
On Appeal in
Gillingham v Walker (1885) 45 JP 470 the Court ruled that a traveller with a ticket which did not cover the exact journey had not paid 'his fare', though he had paid ‘a fare’, and the case was remitted for Conviction.
In
Great Western Railway Company v Pocock (1979) V 41 Exch.LR 415 it was decided that a passenger could not travel a nearer distance than allowed by his ticket, even when the fare for an extended distance was the same.
(There are others including
Browning v Floyd - see below)
The OP can do no worse than contact a newspaper
"RAIL COMPANY TAKE PASSENGER TO COURT FOR 0p" would be a great headline, because that is what is happening.
I think you are missing the point which others have made. This is a criminal matter. It is not a civil claim. The value of the fare is immaterial. A Company would not be taking a passenger to Court for 0p, but for a contravention of a statute, an offence with no financial significance, such as Nuisance, Trespass, Discrimination, Negligence and hundreds of other Offences, but still a contravention.
With regard to precedent, it's worth remembering the wording in the Appeal Court decision in the case of Browning (1946)
"The rail company may not have lost any money, but the defendant had not paid HIS fare"
Exactly! In
Browning v Floyd (1946) KB 597, Arthur Floyd had not only paid the fare, but had a valid ticket for his journey in his pocket. His offence was complete when he chose keep it in his pocket for use on another occasion and instead presented his wife's unused return ticket. Charged under RoRA and Railway Byelaws.
...perhaps Dave and/or anyone else with such experiences might like to say whether or not a dispute over a £0 fare difference might be considered such a matter that a court in 2015 would take a dim view of....or not?
Magistrates Courts can be inconsistent with marginal matters such as this, but I'd hold a low expectation of a Court agreeing to award much, if anything, by way of costs to the pursuit of an offence where the difference in fares was zero AND the actual ticket held did cover a substantial part of the journey, AND there was no evidence of regular, or of higher-value, fare evasion, AND there were no prior incidents of ticket irregularly by the passenger.
But I wouldn't advise risking the costs of attempting such a challenge when an opportunity to agree an £80 out-of-court settlement is on the table. What I would find reasonable to advise, is attempting a resolution by negotiation, turning the argument on the point that there is no prior record and no loss - there's never any harm in pointing out that the Company would have nothing to gain by pursuing the matter in Court.
. . . . I don't think our legal system is based around a concept of fairness (at least not on the evidence I've seen!).
. . . a point you've made forcefully on several occasions. You're quite right, it is a system which is based around applying the massive cannon of statutes which the UK's Parliament has generated at an absurd rate, to the incidents which are brought before the Courts for a Judgement, and then applying the evidence of the incident to the statutes as precisely as possible and with their reasoning set out as clearly as possible. As I've remarked previously, any distaste for the Judgements of the Courts who are trying offences should properly be directed at the elected MPs who produce these almost endless catalogues of new Laws and who have the discretion to repeal or amend old ones, rather than at the unelected Judges and Magistrates who are constrained by those Acts and have negligible discretion (despite the populist view to the contrary).
