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I wonder how it would view the following situation where tickets are sold in this manner and contracts created through custom and practice, notwithstanding some terms or signage in the premises:
It's like watching a film and paying £5 on exiting every time - only for the 50th time you visit the cinema there's a person with a hi vis at the screen door taking your details and charging you £100 for not using the machines or kiosk on your way in.
I think it would be very reasonable to say that almost nobody here could, without looking, say what's on the back of any of the railway tickets that they have used recently.
You pay attention to the front of the ticket because that's where the necessary and actionable information is - the origin, the destination, the date, the type of ticket, and validity notes. Nothing routinely calls your attention to what's on the back, because it's not normally something you ever need to look at.
So guards are routinely selling tickets to ill-informed passengers, without even bothering to comment that this is, strictly speaking, in contravention of the Rules.
For those concerned with the Law (as opposed to good practice), does this not count as aiding and abetting the offence? Especially when regularly committed by someone who does know the Rules?
Alternatively, maybe agent provocateur applies?
IANAL.
I think there is a "compelling reason" - which is a valid ground - for the appeal body to allow the appeal: the Government's intention as expressed here (your son can draw attention to the word "ensuring"):
"The Penalty Fare regulations allow TOCs to target fare evaders...while ensuring that honest, fare-paying passengers are not unfairly penalised."
It seems to me "unfairly penalising" to charge a penalty fare after conductors gave the impression that buying on the train is OK.
The word "ensuring" does not mean "risking that some honest fare-paying passengers will be penalised".
It seems wrong to me if a company rewards staff with commission payments for selling tickets on board, while expecting them to reduce their own future income by warning passengers to buy beforehand.
Your son's friend can write a witness statement.
How old is your son? That may be relevant to arguments that there is a compelling reason.
== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: ==
It seems to me that where conductors give the impression that not buying until on the train is lawful, passengers may well be justified, when they see a headline on a notice or ticket about penalty fares, in not reading further - thinking that must refer to some other behaviour.
[Edit: More posts originally in this thread, covering general issues including how the system might be improved, are now at:
[Edit: This thread was split from https://www.railforums.co.uk/threads/penalty-fare-help-needed-please.245843/page-2#post-6143021 The text in this post is from that thread:] I think there is a "compelling reason" - which is a valid ground - for the appeal body to allow the appeal: the...