Nexus Penalty Fares and Prosecutions - FOI data

[KirkstallOne]

Some interesting Penalty Fare figures obtained from Nexus via FOI that I upload for discussion. I asked them for:

1. The number of Penalty Fares issued to passengers on Nexus services
2. The number of Penalty Fares where an appeal was submitted
3. The number of Penalty Fares that resulted in initiation of a prosecution, categorised by:
  - the offence charged
  - the outcome (e.g. conviction, settlement, withdrawn, not guilty)
4. Of 100 randomly sampled penalty fares chosen from those where the penalty was not paid, how many were:
- Appealed unsuccessfully
- Appealed unsuccessfully and then resulted in prosecution
- categorised by offence prosecuted and outcome
[revised question to comply with the total cost limit on processing an FOI application]

A breakdown of the full dataset they supplied for the first 3 questions is:

Nexus Penalty Fares	Issued	Appealed	Appeal Upheld	Upheld with Fare	Appeal Rejected	Prosecuted	Convicted	Not guilty after trial
26.06.2022 to 31.03.2023	18866	2029	492	94	1414	7691	6331	1
01.04.2023 to 31.03.2024	19501	3105	700	187	2310	9866	8051	4
01.04.2024 to 31.03.2025	21044	4169	836	295	3053	10373	*	*
01.04.2025 to 19.05.2025	3341	732	88	119	605	*	*	*

The vast majority of these prosecutions are internally classed as 'PFN Flipover'. I asked for clarification on the actual offences charged and for this they use Section 5(4)(a) of the Tyne and Wear Passenger Transport Act 1979 and most are prosecuted by the SJP.

For the fourth question, they provided a 'dip' sample of 100 appealed Penalty Fares that had not been paid and had moved to prosecution under Section 5(4)(a). For this set,

Category	Count
Fines and costs awarded	58
Out of court settlement	9
Withdrawn (various)	21
Papers served	2
Yellow Card	1
Closed (various)	9

The relevant section of the Tyne and Wear act is,

5.-(1) This section applies on and after the appointed day to persons using specified services, that is to say, persons making a journey on the Metro or on a public service vehicle operated by or, subject to section 8 of this Act, on behalf of the Executive on an area bus service in the designated area, or partly on the Metro and partly on such a public service vehicle.

(2) Any person using a specified service shall, if requested to do so by an authorised person—
(a) produce, and if so requested deliver up, a ticket showing that his fare has been paid; or
(b) pay the fare for the journey he is making; or
(c) give to the authorised person his name and address.

(3) If any person contravenes subsection (2) above, he shall be guilty of an offence and liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding £200.

(4) If any person without reasonable excuse—
(a) uses, or attempts to use, a specified service without previous payment of the fare for the journey he is making; or
(b) when his fare for a journey of a certain distance has been paid, uses, or attempts to use, a specified service by way of continuation of that journey without previous payment of the additional fare for the additional distance of that journey; or
(c) having failed to pay the fare for the journey he is making or, as the case may be, the additional fare for the additional distance of the journey he is making and, having been requested to give to an authorised person his name and address, fails to do so or gives a false name and address;

he shall be guilty in any such case of an offence and liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding £500.

 

[island]

Thanks for sharing.

It should be noted that Nexus are not barred from prosecuting after a rejected appealed PF, as the T&W Passenger Transport Act 1979 is not listed in regulation 11 (4) of the Railways (Penalty Fares) Regulations 2018.

 

[KirkstallOne]

Yes there are a number of unique features for these cases compared to e.g. the Northern cases we are familiar with.

- Nexus are a penalty fare operator but the offences they can charge (Tyne and Wear byelaws and Tyne And Wear Transport Act 1979) are not mentioned in regulation 11 of the PF Regulations
- s5(4) offences are somewhat equivalent to RoRA offences (see the similar wording) but substitute ‘reasonable excuse’ for ‘intent’
- An apparent mismatch between the criteria for issuing a penalty fare (strict liability) and the reasonable excuse criteria for a 5(4) offence. Seems reasonable excuse is necessarily broader than the strict liability criteria of a byelaw 18 offence.
- s5(4) offences can be charged via SJP whereas other TOCs may only charge byelaw offences

Also I presume the Tyne and Wear byelaws are not covered by regulation 11 either as they are not made under one of the following. It’s a bit difficult trying to follow the long history of the various byelaws.

(b)any byelaw made under—

(i)section 67 of the Transport Act 1962(13);
(ii)section 129 of the Railways Act 1993(14);
(iii)section 219 of the Transport Act 2000(15);
(iv)section 46 of the Railways Act 2005(16).

 

[island]

Yes, all you have written appears correct. The section 5 (4) offence not being imprisonable means it is eligible to be brought into SJP. Regulation 6 of SI2016/430 authorised, amongst other things, SJP to be used to prosecute it.

 

[furlong]

The key point about 5(4) is the phrase "without reasonable excuse" which protects the "honest passenger" in a really simple way that the need for (now strict liability) "intent" in RORA no longer does (if it ever did).
Basically the court is not constrained in its consideration of whatever justification for their actions the defendant puts forward. The defendant can explain and the court can decide whether or not it amounts to a reasonable excuse. This provides a straightforward means to avoid outcomes that seem problematic within the Penalty Fares regime or the normal rail byelaws or RORA in terms of the over-reliance on the exercise of (potentially biased) prosecutorial discretion.

To put it bluntly, if a Penalty Fare is unpaid (irrespective of any appeals) and Nexus prosecutes, the defendant still has the opportunity to provide an unconstrained reasonable excuse to the court for consideration, and this could be something the Penalty Fares appeals bodies are known to be reluctant to accept (such as insufficient time to purchase a ticket before boarding or unfamiliarity with "buy before you board" coupled with poor signage).

For this reason, while I'd agree the issuance of a Penalty Fare amounts to the chosen resolution of an incident and should rule out prosecution in the absence of new evidence, I'm not particularly worried about potential injustice from these prosecutions as the passenger might get a fairer hearing than from a Penalty Fares appeals panel!

 

[Pushpit]

Nexus have zap squads going through trains from time to time, at least 4 staff members, my own experiences says there is a sub 5% chance of this happening, but it's certainly not 0%. There are also a number of stations which have gates but are only turned on during some revenue protection exercise, the Airport station is the one that I use a fair bit. Regent Centre will soon be getting gates, but I suspect it will also be an "as and when" basis, which will catch people out randomly. Then there stations like Monument, Central Station and in particular Haymarket (a student hub) where gates are more or less permanently staffed except very early or very late.

From what I can make out, it's just a fixed SOP to write out a Penalty Fare if you are intercepted or trapped inside a gate - I've never seen any other course of action. It wouldn't be easy to jump over the Nexus gates, and though doubtless it has happened, I have never seen it.

 

[KirkstallOne]

It seems curious we see so few Nexus cases, as the numbers indicate they are issuing a lot of penalty fares and pursuing a lot of prosecutions. Are there any examples on the forum of the SJP documents they send out?

 

[furlong]

It seems curious we see so few Nexus cases, as the numbers indicate they are issuing a lot of penalty fares and pursuing a lot of prosecutions. Are there any examples on the forum of the SJP documents they send out?

It would be interesting to understand this.
My suggestions:

1) It's a simple fares system that most people in the area generally understand? There are few visitors from outside the area who feel they've been caught out unfairly (or else the staff on the ground are good at exercising discretion)?

2) The communications and marketing about the system (posters, notices, leaflets, announcements) are clear and effective so when people are caught they accept it's a fair cop?

3) The inspectors on the ground accurately explain what's happening to the people they write up so there isn't the level of confusion we sometimes see?

4) The paperwork issued doesn't leave recipients struggling to understand what it means, what it'll cost and what they need to do and pay and when?

5) It's a small system so the staff involved really can all be completely in touch and up-to-date with everything going on and work together coherently and consistently?

Any evidence for or against those? Any more ideas?

 

[Haywain]

Any more ideas?

Yes, it may just be that the number we see is comparable to what we see from TOCs.

 

[Pushpit]

It seems curious we see so few Nexus cases, as the numbers indicate they are issuing a lot of penalty fares and pursuing a lot of prosecutions. Are there any examples on the forum of the SJP documents they send out?

There was this case, which demonstrates the sausage machine approach when someone was repeatedly taken to court on mistaken identity.

It wasn’t me! Penalty fine

Hi, looking for some advice please. I recieved a further steps notice for a penalty fine and after going back to them with info HMCTS have sent me a plea form and statutory declaration. Apparently the original fine was sent to my old address which is why I didn’t receive the first letter and...

www.railforums.co.uk

 

[KirkstallOne]

Yes, it may just be that the number we see is comparable to what we see from TOCs.

I feel the numbers are too big, nearly 10k prosecutions a year, that is similar to Northern’s historic numbers for Penalty Fare prosecutions and those appear fairly often.

I wonder if they use PFs more widely instead of TIRs so this is effectively the full spectrum of offences we are seeing.

 

[Pushpit]

Any evidence for or against those? Any more ideas?

I think there is an element of this being like the tube - it's difficult to come up with a reason for not having a ticket on a mass transit system. One aspect though relates to the various Pop cards in circulation, and some inconsistencies around this: if you decide not to scan in but see the gates unexpectedly in use and lots of staff around, then so long as you have funds you can just scan out, get charged the maximum fare but the gate will open. But do the same thing at a station without gates and with a staff block then you will get a PF instead, ditto if caught on the train. I've only seen Nexus staff write out PFs, nothing else.

Nexus used to print up big posters listing the names, ages and approximate addresses for all those taken to court. Newcastle is just a big village, everyone knows everyone so these posters were avidly read. That stopped I guess around 10 years ago.

Another feature, which may explain the high percentage taken to court, is that Nexus staff do not seem to check IDs, so it wouldn't surprise me if a lot of cases were convictions on random names and addresses, destined to remain permanently unpaid, but it would also explain why the PFs didn't get paid first time around.

 

[KirkstallOne]

There was this case, which demonstrates the sausage machine approach when someone was repeatedly taken to court on mistaken identity.

It wasn’t me! Penalty fine

Hi, looking for some advice please. I recieved a further steps notice for a penalty fine and after going back to them with info HMCTS have sent me a plea form and statutory declaration. Apparently the original fine was sent to my old address which is why I didn’t receive the first letter and...

www.railforums.co.uk

Yes I saw that one but it doesn’t give the full picture of how they pursue these in terms of letters sent, charge sheets etc. Do we even have a Nexus PF notice? Given they describe the offence as ‘PFN flipover’ it must say something significant on the back.

 

[Tetchytyke]

I used to work for as the manager of a debt advice team in Tyneside so I did see a good fair few of these.

The difference between Nexus and the TOCs is that you can (as at least could when I was working there until 2020) actually ring up the PF and prosecution people and have a reasonable conversation with them. I’d certainly been able to negotiate with them a few times, either to get the PF rescinded for my particularly vulnerable clients or to give them an extra few days to get payment together (e.g. if they were waiting for their Universal Credit to come through). It didn’t always work, but at least I could have that conversation with them.

What was more common, though, is that people simply ignored the paperwork- both the PF and then the prosecution paperwork. The first time many engaged was when the bailiffs rocked up at their home to enforce the criminal fine. This is more what is meant by a “FPN flipover ”- if you don’t engage and don’t pay then they prosecute.

As for jumping barriers, it happens, all the time. The staff just let it happen, for fairly obvious reasons in many cases. North Shields is particularly bad for it. When the barriers went in people started leaping the fence. So Nexus put a bigger fence in. So people started walking down the track and leaping the fence there. I saw one chap with a foot stool he used to get the height to climb the fence. All to save a £2 fare!

 

[Pushpit]

Yes I thought "Flipover" was as in "ganna flip this un owa" to the prosecution folk, due to non payment, rather anything terribly technical.

 

[KirkstallOne]

Interesting perspective on what flipover means I hadn’t considered that interpretation, if the PF’s are the normal till roll types my assumption that it referred to some legalese on the back can’t be correct.

This thread actually gives the wording of the charge:

SJP Notice - Attempted Fare Evasion - Tyne & Wear Metro

Hi Folks, Just looking to see if I could get some advice on the procedure here, what options I have and what to expect. Seems like you are all quite clued up on this here. A few months ago I was travelling from Regent Centre metro station to Monument Station in Newcastle city centre. I bought...

www.railforums.co.uk

Charge - Attempted Fare Evasion
On [day], [dd mm yyyy] without reasonable excuse, used or attempted to use a specified service, namely the Tyne and Wear Metro without previous payment of the fare for the journey contrary to section 5(4)(a) of the Tyne and wear Passenger Transport Act 1979.

Charge authorised by: [solicitor]

Seems in that case the passenger would have had a strong defence but understandably chose to settle the matter.

 

[Segedunum]

A significant chunk of those down as "PFN Flipover" will be the same people committing the same offence over and over again. What tends to happen is that they're eventually dealt with in bulk.

Nexus staff do ask for IDs - but getting the police out to ID someone who refuses to give details or where the details seem off tends to be a challenge - so the more likely scenario is work behind the scenes to gradually build up a picture of those habitually giving false information. Staff do communicate when someone's decided to do something untoward (abusive, no ticket, etc) and do a runner.

Otherwise - its a simple system with a limited number of common ticket types, so most PFNs will relate to either having an expired ticket or no ticket/validated pass at all.

 

[KirkstallOne]

A significant chunk of those down as "PFN Flipover" will be the same people committing the same offence over and over again. What tends to happen is that they're eventually dealt with in bulk.

Nexus staff do ask for IDs - but getting the police out to ID someone who refuses to give details or where the details seem off tends to be a challenge - so the more likely scenario is work behind the scenes to gradually build up a picture of those habitually giving false information. Staff do communicate when someone's decided to do something untoward (abusive, no ticket, etc) and do a runner.

Otherwise - its a simple system with a limited number of common ticket types, so most PFNs will relate to either having an expired ticket or no ticket/validated pass at all.

Good context thanks. Do you know how often PFs are used versus just taking down details for investigation?