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My son 25 ran away from a railway staff member trying to issue him a penalty fare. He's apparently been 'donutting' a lot. I've told him that wasn't the smart thing to do and it could get escalated to a criminal offence. Apparently it will be moved to Ircas. Is there anything we can do to preempt this before it escalates?
My son 25 ran away from a railway staff member trying to issue him a penalty fare. He's apparently been 'donutting' a lot. I've told him that wasn't the smart thing to do and it could get escalated to a criminal offence. Apparently it will be moved to Ircas. Is there anything we can do to preempt this before it escalates?
My son 25 ran away from a railway staff member trying to issue him a penalty fare. He's apparently been 'donutting' a lot. I've told him that wasn't the smart thing to do and it could get escalated to a criminal offence. Apparently it will be moved to Ircas. Is there anything we can do to preempt this before it escalates?
My son 25 ran away from a railway staff member trying to issue him a penalty fare. He's apparently been 'donutting' a lot. I've told him that wasn't the smart thing to do and it could get escalated to a criminal offence. Apparently it will be moved to Ircas. Is there anything we can do to preempt this before it escalates?
Welcome. You will get good and well informed advice on this forum.
Donutting would not really warrant a penalty fare. It’s deliberate evasion so ought really to be reported for investigation which is the pathway towards court prosecution if not headed off appropriately.
That’s not to say an Inspector might have opted for a Penalty Fare which if they did they were doing your son a favour. A penalty fare is the least worst and cheapest option and comes with things like rights of appeal.
A report for investigation usually ends up with an expensive out of court settlement involving paying back fares they believe are owed or a day out to the magistrates with a court fine and criminal record to take home.
So question is how sure are you / your son that this was a Penalty fare? Or did he just assume that based on seeing the posters at stations that talk about Penalty Fares for people not having a valid ticket?
Ultimately whether anything will happen depends on what information they got from your son. If the scanned a ticket with a barcode / QR code they can probably get the info they need to chase this up
But can’t gaurantee they necessarily will do so.
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You mention IRCAS. I think they operate penalty fares appeals processes, payment collection and maybe follow up enforcement for several train companies
But would be handy to know as asked above what train operator or rail staff thus involved / where it happened.
No details to staff member. He got the ticket through Trainline, but it was printed at the station and he deleted the Trainline account on the walk home. Unsure if that effects anything.
== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: ==
Welcome. You will get good and well informed advice on this forum.
Donutting would not really warrant a penalty fare. It’s deliberate evasion so ought really to be reported for investigation which is the pathway towards court prosecution if not headed off appropriately.
That’s not to say an Inspector might have opted for a Penalty Fare which if they did they were doing your son a favour. A penalty fare is the least worst and cheapest option and comes with things like rights of appeal.
A report for investigation usually ends up with an expensive out of court settlement involving paying back fares they believe are owed or a day out to the magistrates with a court fine and criminal record to take home.
So question is how sure are you / your son that this was a Penalty fare? Or did he just assume that based on seeing the posters at stations that talk about Penalty Fares for people not having a valid ticket?
Ultimately whether anything will happen depends on what information they got from your son. If the scanned a ticket with a barcode / QR code they can probably get the info they need to chase this up
But can’t gaurantee they necessarily will do so.
== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: ==
You mention IRCAS. I think they operate penalty fares appeals processes, payment collection and maybe follow up enforcement for several train companies
But would be handy to know as asked above what train operator or rail staff thus involved / where it happened.
Too late now, but the advice is usually not to delete the Trainline account. If they have managed to capture enough information about the ticket to ascertain where it was bought (maybe by taking a photograph of it) then they will still be able to get full details of the account. But your son will no longer be able to, so would be at a disadvantage in terms of information about previous purchases.
Too late now, but the advice is usually not to delete the Trainline account. If they have managed to capture enough information about the ticket to ascertain where it was bought (maybe by taking a photograph of it) then they will still be able to get full details of the account. But your son will no longer be able to, so would be at a disadvantage in terms of information about previous purchases.
There is no point contacting them in this instance - at least in my view.
If any contact is made it will be with you son and not you - the liability is his.
The threshold is quite simple - if you are caught on a train or having taken a train without a valid ticket for the whole of the journey you can be prosecuted and will be found guilty. It is a strict liability offence. The railway has 6 months to do this.
By running away your son has aggravated the whole business.
If they have captured enough information to identify him they will interrogate all the journey history they can and maybe offer him (not you, he should be dealing with this) an out of court settlement based on the anytime single fare for every journey they see as suspicious plus an admin fee of usually £150. No credit is usually given for any fare paid.
This can come to a substantial sum. To take a GA example. Let's say he had been offending on Enfield - London if any fares paid were ignored the settlement would be based on £17 per day or £85 a five day week. Payable on demand.
If he had been identified and the evasion was on a large scale you must come back here for further advice.
If he has not been identified he must buy the correct ticket from now on - the railway is not stupid and he is now on their radar.
There is no point contacting them in this instance - at least in my view.
If any contact is made it will be with you son and not you - the liability is his.
The threshold is quite simple - if you are caught on a train or having taken a train without a valid ticket for the whole of the journey you can be prosecuted and will be found guilty. It is a strict liability offence. The railway has 6 months to do this.
By running away your son has aggravated the whole business.
If they have captured enough information to identify him they will interrogate all the journey history they can and maybe offer him (not you, he should be dealing with this) an out of court settlement based on the anytime single fare for every journey they see as suspicious plus an admin fee of usually £150. No credit is usually given for any fare paid.
This can come to a substantial sum. To take a GA example. Let's say he had been offending on Enfield - London if any fares paid were ignored the settlement would be based on £17 per day or £85 a five day week. Payable on demand.
If he had been identified and the evasion was on a large scale you must come back here for further advice.
If he has not been identified he must buy the correct ticket from now on - the railway is not stupid and he is now on their radar.
Is it worth my son contacting the network before it escalates then?
He will buy tickets properly going forwards, definitely. He is pretty shaken up from this, so am I.
We do not know if he has been identified yet, so I imagine the best course of action is to sit and wait for 6 months.
If he gets a letter and it's a fine, that's manageable.
If it's prosecution that will be tough, will that be a guaranteed criminal record?
If nothing happens, he can count himself lucky.
Is it worth my son contacting the network before it escalates then?
He will buy tickets properly going forwards, definitely. He is pretty shaken up from this, so am I.
We do not know if he has been identified yet, so I imagine the best course of action is to sit and wait for 6 months.
If he gets a letter and it's a fine, that's manageable.
If it's prosecution that will be tough, will that be a guaranteed criminal record?
If nothing happens, he can count himself lucky.
The usual advice given here is to wait until or to see if the railway company contacts your son. Especially for the next 6 to 7 months
That could be by post or e mail so watch spam.
They wouldn’t normally just send a fine through the post. Usually starts with what’s called a ‘verification letter’ along lines of ‘we believe you’ve not been paying correct fare’ / ‘you were unable to present a valid ticket when asked’ asking what you have to say about it.
If this happens best thing to do is come back here for advice on how to respond before sending any reply.
But anything like that should not be ignored or it may well just escalate automatically.
The usual advice given here is to wait until or to see if the railway company contacts your son. Especially for the next 6 to 7 months
That could be by post or e mail so watch spam.
They wouldn’t normally just send a fine through the post. Usually starts with what’s called a ‘verification letter’ along lines of ‘we believe you’ve not been paying correct fare’ / ‘you were unable to present a valid ticket when asked’ asking what you have to say about it.
If this happens best thing to do is come back here for advice on how to respond before sending any reply.
But anything like that should not be ignored or it may well just escalate automatically.
That is very useful to know. I will definitely be returning here.
One other concern. They have an old address, follow up with letters that go ignored. Then they escalate to prosecution without my son ever knowing about it.
That is very useful to know. I will definitely be returning here.
One other concern. They have an old address, follow up with letters that go ignored. Then they escalate to prosecution without my son ever knowing about it.
Yes, that is possible. If your son is prosecuted and convicted without their knowledge there is a process that he can go through once they find out to ask for the case to be reheard. It’s called a Statutory Declaration, and needs to be done quickly once he finds out, but I think we are getting well ahead of ourselves.
If it was booked online and then printed, the member of staff only needs to have obtained the ref number printed on the ticket in order to chase this up.
So if they took the ticket, noted the number, or took a picture of it then it is likely that they'll be in contact.
My son 25 ran away from a railway staff member trying to issue him a penalty fare. He's apparently been 'donutting' a lot. I've told him that wasn't the smart thing to do and it could get escalated to a criminal offence. Apparently it will be moved to Ircas. Is there anything we can do to preempt this before it escalates?
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