CreweCap01
New Member
My intentions for this post is to act as a reference for other people in a similar situation to I was, as well as provide information to the forum that could assist in other more general discussions. Please let me know if this kind of thread is not suitable for this forum.
Original offence
Back in 2023, I travelled to Manchester Piccadilly with Northern rail. My phone died before reaching the station (annoyingly northern rail trains rarely provide charging points) so when asked to produce my ticket at the gate, I could not. My details were taken and information was provided for me to send proof of my tickets at a later date. When sending proof, I realised the 16-25 railcard I was using had expired a few days before travel; naively, I bought a new railcard and sent this off with my proof of tickets. Time elapsed with no response, until I received a penalty fare notice over a month later. For some reason (god knows why) I decided to appeal this, stating I sent proof etc. Communications ceased from this point, and I forgot about the matter almost entirely.
Court collection order
Fast forward about four months, I received a letter from Manchester Magistrates notifying me I had been prosecuted under the Railway Byelaws and had to pay close to £500 as a fine + additional costs. Up until this point, my last communication was the penalty fare notice - any court summons / out of court disposals had not reached me. Upon receiving this letter, I went onto these forums and realised quickly that this situation was more serious than I had first thought. Northern rail do have phone lines to contact in such a situation, however once it reaches the court they cannot do anything, communcation must be sent via email to which responses can be quite delayed.
Statuory Declaration
As I had no knowledge of the prosecution, I submitted a statuory declaration via a solicitor. I would strongly reccomend this route (if you can afford it), as doing this through the courts yourself yields extremely long response times and very poor communication from HMCTS. For reference, the firm I used was Reeds. This process involves sending a signed declaration informing the court you had no knowledge of proceedings. It goes without saying that anything you write on here should be the absolute truth, for risk of misleading the courts and possibly committing a much more serious offence of perjury.
This declaration was subsequently accepted, with the case being overturned and passed back to Manchester for re-listing.
Out-of-court settlement
In the meantime, my solicitor had engaged with Northern rail, negotiating a settlement agreement upon the case being re-listed by the courts. The case took over a year to process in the courts, where I finally managed to settle with Northern and avoid any prosecution. In this situation, I advise you to be very proactive in your communication to avoid prosecution occurring again.
Main takeaways:
- As stated before on this forum, Northern rail take quite a pragmatic approach and are keen to settle matters out of court, provided you engage with the process (and are not a 'severe' offender)
- Don't be an idiot like me and instead, engage with the process. If you are in the wrong, eat humble pie and accept this. A ~£100 fine is much better than having to deal with the courts and have this whole process dragged out over months (or years in my case).
- The advice on this forum is really invaluable, and the advice that I had read on other cases really helped me act fast and make the right decisions. I guess this post is a way for me to give back - I hope my experience and learnings can help (slightly) settle anyone who is in a similar situation!
Original offence
Back in 2023, I travelled to Manchester Piccadilly with Northern rail. My phone died before reaching the station (annoyingly northern rail trains rarely provide charging points) so when asked to produce my ticket at the gate, I could not. My details were taken and information was provided for me to send proof of my tickets at a later date. When sending proof, I realised the 16-25 railcard I was using had expired a few days before travel; naively, I bought a new railcard and sent this off with my proof of tickets. Time elapsed with no response, until I received a penalty fare notice over a month later. For some reason (god knows why) I decided to appeal this, stating I sent proof etc. Communications ceased from this point, and I forgot about the matter almost entirely.
Court collection order
Fast forward about four months, I received a letter from Manchester Magistrates notifying me I had been prosecuted under the Railway Byelaws and had to pay close to £500 as a fine + additional costs. Up until this point, my last communication was the penalty fare notice - any court summons / out of court disposals had not reached me. Upon receiving this letter, I went onto these forums and realised quickly that this situation was more serious than I had first thought. Northern rail do have phone lines to contact in such a situation, however once it reaches the court they cannot do anything, communcation must be sent via email to which responses can be quite delayed.
Statuory Declaration
As I had no knowledge of the prosecution, I submitted a statuory declaration via a solicitor. I would strongly reccomend this route (if you can afford it), as doing this through the courts yourself yields extremely long response times and very poor communication from HMCTS. For reference, the firm I used was Reeds. This process involves sending a signed declaration informing the court you had no knowledge of proceedings. It goes without saying that anything you write on here should be the absolute truth, for risk of misleading the courts and possibly committing a much more serious offence of perjury.
This declaration was subsequently accepted, with the case being overturned and passed back to Manchester for re-listing.
Out-of-court settlement
In the meantime, my solicitor had engaged with Northern rail, negotiating a settlement agreement upon the case being re-listed by the courts. The case took over a year to process in the courts, where I finally managed to settle with Northern and avoid any prosecution. In this situation, I advise you to be very proactive in your communication to avoid prosecution occurring again.
Main takeaways:
- As stated before on this forum, Northern rail take quite a pragmatic approach and are keen to settle matters out of court, provided you engage with the process (and are not a 'severe' offender)
- Don't be an idiot like me and instead, engage with the process. If you are in the wrong, eat humble pie and accept this. A ~£100 fine is much better than having to deal with the courts and have this whole process dragged out over months (or years in my case).
- The advice on this forum is really invaluable, and the advice that I had read on other cases really helped me act fast and make the right decisions. I guess this post is a way for me to give back - I hope my experience and learnings can help (slightly) settle anyone who is in a similar situation!
