Letter requiring mitigating circumstances.

[Unistudent101]

Hi all, I have attempted a draft in response to the letter where I am asking for leniency, as after reading all of the advice in this thread I have realised that I don’t have a strong enough defence to present due to me having a lack of evidence at hand (for example recording of conversation with barrier staff) therefore would result in my word against the latter so I have attempted to hold my hands up and plead for their leniency in my draft:

Dear Elaine Ashby,



I would first of all like to thank you for taking the time to read my case and again offer my deepest apologies for the grave mistake i committed. I know that It is in fact my responsibility to always make sure the correct fare has been paid for and in this case I failed to double check that I had paid for the correct ticket until it was too late. What I failed to do in this case was plan ahead and pre-book my tickets in order to avoid confusion and predicament I had landed myself in. I have learnt a significant lesson from this and plead to atone for my actions by an out of court settlement of me paying the outstanding fees in addition to the administrative charges generated from this case.



Your faithfully,

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 24 May 2022 ==

Dear Elaine Ashby,



I would first of all like to thank you for taking the time to read my case and again offer my deepest apologies for the grave mistake i committed. I know that It is in fact my responsibility to always make sure the correct fare has been paid for and in this case I failed to double check that I had paid for the correct ticket until it was too late. What I failed to do in this case was plan ahead and pre-book my tickets in order to avoid confusion and predicament I had landed myself in. I have learnt a significant lesson from this and plead to atone for my actions by an out of court settlement of me paying the outstanding fees in addition to the administrative charges generated from this case.



Your faithfully,

I know this draft is fairly short and was wondering if anyone had some helpful pointers I could use in this draft it would be much appreciated.
Also I believe that my first response may have come across as my trying to defend my actions which was not the message I was trying to convey in my first letter, so does this draft still do this to an extent? Thanks again.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 24 May 2022 ==

Dear Elaine Ashby,



I would first of all like to thank you for taking the time to read my case and again offer my deepest apologies for the grave mistake i committed. I know that It is in fact my responsibility to always make sure the correct fare has been paid for and in this case I failed to double check that I had paid for the correct ticket until it was too late. What I failed to do in this case was plan ahead and pre-book my tickets in order to avoid confusion and predicament I had landed myself in. I have learnt a significant lesson from this and plead to atone for my actions by an out of court settlement of me paying the outstanding fees in addition to the administrative charges generated from this case.



Your faithfully,

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 24 May 2022 ==


I know this draft is fairly short and was wondering if anyone had some helpful pointers I could use in this draft it would be much appreciated.
Also I believe that my first response may have come across as me trying to defend my actions which was not the message I was trying to convey in my first letter, so does this draft still do this to an extent? Thanks again.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 24 May 2022 ==

Sorry, no idea.

But in principle, if you have been given until (for example) 29 February to reply, then I would expect a reply received on 29 February to be considered just as thoroughly as one received on 1 January. But a reply received on 1 March would be late so might be ignored.

Yes this makes a lot of sense, I am planning on emailing them a scanned copy of the letter on Friday.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 24 May 2022 ==

The company does not get "agitated", nor does it care about your personal circumstances.

The company is in the process of collecting evidence from you to prosecute you and hopefully submit it to a court. It is not contacting you to try and decide if you are some sort of "good person", merely ascertaining whether you have a valid defence. As it happens, you do not have any defence whatsoever against a Bylaw offence and a very poor one against a Regulation of Railways offence (which is more serious and requires intent be shown). Wilfully submitting to them, and quickly, is not in your interests. Further, you have advanced a defence which will require you to potentially call your brother, who is a child, as your witness, if it reaches court and you choose to plead not guilty to a Regulation of Railways offence. If you (sensibly) elect not to use this defence in court, the court will have questions as to why you told the company about this defence but declined to use it in court.

I urge posters here to stop advising people who receive letters (from TOCs other than those with prosecution policies geared towards settlement by default) to respond as fast as possible and with detail of their circumstances. These letters are evidence and can be used in court. "I'm a student" is not only irrelevant, but rather invites the question in court "so it would be fair to say money is fairly tight; is that why you chose to evade the rail fare?". Almost everything you tell them, especially about your personal circumstances, can be potentially incriminating. "I don't have much money" is on one hand a plea for leniency but could also be construed as evidence of intent to commit the offence in the first place.

So far the company has taken 5 and a half months to reach this stage and it took them two weeks or more to even send a standard letter saying "ok thanks for admitting to an offence, and yes we are still minded to prosecute". You have until 29th May, a Sunday, to get the letter back to them. If they receive it on the 27th, they have four days to open it, read it, process it and submit your case for prosecution.

If they go past 3rd June (a bank holiday too!) without submitting papers to the magistrates' court, boom, they can't prosecute you for any summary-only offence. I would not be giving them more time than they need!

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 21 May 2022 ==


A reply is evidence even if it is late. It would not be ignored, although there is the risk the company really gets its act together all of a sudden and submits the case immediately on expiry of their own arbitrary deadline.

Thanks for the advice, I’m planning on sending it via a scanned copy over email on Friday which would be the last working day before the 29th.

 

[DerelictLine]

Dear Elaine Ashby,

I would first of all like to thank you for taking the time to read my case and I again offer my deepest apologies and regret for the grave mistake my actions. I am well aware that it is always my responsibility to ensure I hold a valid ticket for the journey I am making and to purchase this before I travel. I have learnt a valuable lesson from this, and learnt how my actions can be damaging to the railway and its workers. You can be certain that this will never happen again. I once again would like to apologise for this and ask if you would please consider allowing me to pay back any revenue that has been lost due to my actions plus any administrative costs incurred by yourselves in order to investigate this matter.
Your faithfully sincerely,

Did you send this on Friday like you said you were going to?

If not, I have proposed some changes for you (please see above in the message I have quoted)

 

[Unistudent101]

Hi all I finally got a response from TIL after sending my letter last friday, they didn’t get back to me until the 6th of June, and are now offering me An out of court settlement which I am grateful about so thanks to everyone who gave helpful advice. The solicitor who I initially hired (which I come to realise was a waste of money) said the best advice given was whoever said I should wait until the very last possible day for me to send my letter as that is the only reason they are now offering administrative disposal as they know it’s too late to bring this case to court, he also it’s down to me if I want to pay the administrative disposal or I could simply ignore, however this is an outcome I was seeking to achieve anyways and I wouldn’t want to be hit with a surprise court hearing.

Thanks a lot to everyone who gave such helpful advice it really made a difference

 

[AlterEgo]

Big win for you, well done. TIL are tricky customers at the best of times.

Partly as a result of not rushing to their request, the case is now out of time, and they cannot prosecute it in the magistrates’ court. Although for your own peace of mind you may find the settlement good value, it is not actually preventing anything at this stage, although any outstanding fare could in theory be recouped via civil means. They cannot however prosecute you.

You were wise to send it as late as possible. They’re inefficient; this was not a complex case for them to process.

I wouldn’t respond immediately. Use up as much of the deadline as you can, because they only have until 3rd June to lay papers before a court.