Railcard case settled in March, new letter received for interview

[HaimusiD]

Hi all

I've read few threads about people in the similar situation but I would like to double check.

In February 2025, I was stopped by the staff [Northern] and failed to show my railcard. In March I received email from DRPU request for evidence and I apologiesd that my railcard has expired and was offered for settlement (one jouney + admin charge).

Last month I've received an email from Digital Fraud team mentioned that they've checked my account with *Redact* other journeys from January 2024 - January 2025 and request for interview under PACE and evidence. They only mentioned 'The conduct we are investigating may amount to an offence under the Fraud Act 2006.' and no settlement included.

I understand they are out of time for railway byelaws and they could purse a civil charge on me. What's the best option for me here? Not respond and waiting to see if I get a summon from civil court? Many thanks for your time reading this.

 

[Tetchytyke]

Redact the details, but it's difficult to advise without seeing the full correspondence.

As you note, they must bring prosecutions under the Byelaws or under the Regulation of Railways Act within six months. That time limit is six years for Fraud Act prosecutions.

To prosecute for fraud they have to prove both the act (actus reus) and that you intended to commit fraud (mens rea). They will no doubt argue that you selecting the railcard option at purchase is fraud by misrepresentation, i.e. you told them you had a railcard when you didn't. Intent is proven based on what the mythical 'reasonable person' would think, not what you as an individual actually thought.

My gut instinct would be to disregard the email and not engage in correspondence. It is for them to prove that you actually travelled using a railcard discount you were not entitled to. The purchase of tickets does not necessarily prove they were used, and the scanning of tickets does not necessarily prove you were the one using them.

This will depend on what you have previously said to them, though.

ETA: I presume this is a vanilla case of travelling without a railcard, rather than something more serious, such as creating a fake railcard.

 

[user9999999999]

Did you produce an expired railcard or did you not produce one at all? What railcards have you held and when did they expire?

 

[HaimusiD]

I did provide my railcards up until 2024. It was 26-30. I was still valid for that railcard for the journeys.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 8 Sep 2025 ==

Redact the details, but it's difficult to advise without seeing the full correspondence.

As you note, they must bring prosecutions under the Byelaws or under the Regulation of Railways Act within six months. That time limit is six years for Fraud Act prosecutions.

To prosecute for fraud they have to prove both the act (actus reus) and that you intended to commit fraud (mens rea). They will no doubt argue that you selecting the railcard option at purchase is fraud by misrepresentation, i.e. you told them you had a railcard when you didn't. Intent is proven based on what the mythical 'reasonable person' would think, not what you as an individual actually thought.

My gut instinct would be to disregard the email and not engage in correspondence. It is for them to prove that you actually travelled using a railcard discount you were not entitled to. The purchase of tickets does not necessarily prove they were used, and the scanning of tickets does not necessarily prove you were the one using them.

This will depend on what you have previously said to them, though.

ETA: I presume this is a vanilla case of travelling without a railcard, rather than something more serious, such as creating a fake railcard.

Please see attached email. From the settlement back in March I admitted it was a mistake to forgot renew the railcard and provided my railcard history. It doesn’t cover the period they are requesting for the recent email though. And yes, no fake railcard involved.

 

[AlterEgo]

Make no comment and do not attend any interview.

 

[Fawkes Cat]

I understand they are out of time for railway byelaws and they could purse a civil charge on me. What's the best option for me here? Not respond and waiting to see if I get a summon from civil court?

To add to the advice above, if the railway are to claim money back from you in the civil court, they still need to show that it was you who travelled. The standard of proof isn't so high in the civil court (the usual way of saying it is that in the civil court it's what's most likely to be true, while for the criminal court it needs to be proved beyond reasonable doubt) but it's not really in your interest to provide evidence to the railway that they could use against you in a civil action.

I think it's the case that the argument that you don't have to incriminate yourself applies to civil matters as well as criminal ones: if so, you're within your rights to keep quiet and not respond.

 

[Starmill]

You have absolutely nothing to be gained from attending their interview and there is no obligation for you to do so.

Let them come after you for fraud if they wish. I doubt they will bother, but if they do you can get further advice here. Don't bother to respond.

 

[gray1404]

I took would like to add what others have said. Do not reply to them and do not attend any interview. Their sole purpose in wanting you to reply to them as well as to attend any interview is so you have 2 opportunities to incriminate yourself accidentally.

If they had enough evidence for anything further they would be taking you to court already or offering to an out of court settlement at this point.

Do not respond. Expect for them to send a follow up email or letter in the post but do not respond.

 

[HaimusiD]

Thanks all for the replies. And I’ll keep quiet and see what’s next.

 

[Tetchytyke]

Thanks all for the replies. And I’ll keep quiet and see what’s next.

That’s what my response was also going to be. You may get further emails with increasingly histrionic language. If anything concerns you, come back before acknowledging the emails.

 

[Tallguy]

That’s what my response was also going to be. You may get further emails with increasingly histrionic language. If anything concerns you, come back before acknowledging the emails.

Don’t acknowledge the e mails. Do not open the e mails on your PC, read them via a webpage if you have to. Personally I would just ignore. Come back if you get court docs but as others have said, just because their is proof of ticket purchase, doesn’t mean you used that ticket for travel.

 

[gray1404]

Don’t acknowledge the e mails. Do not open the e mails on your PC, read them via a webpage if you have to. Personally I would just ignore. Come back if you get court docs but as others have said, just because their is proof of ticket purchase, doesn’t mean you used that ticket for travel.

Do avoid triggering a read receipt?

 

[Tallguy]

Do avoid triggering a read receipt?

Yes

 

[Cantab26]

That time limit is six years for Fraud Act prosecutions.

This is incorrect. There is no time limit as the offences are all triable on indictment.

 

[contrex]

Yes

In computer email apps, e.g. Outlook, Mozilla Thunderbird, etc, you can refuse to return read receipts, even if requested by the sender.

 

[35B]

In computer email apps, e.g. Outlook, Mozilla Thunderbird, etc, you can refuse to return read receipts, even if requested by the sender.

Techniques that don’t always work with all tracking technologies.

 

[jumble]

In computer email apps, e.g. Outlook, Mozilla Thunderbird, etc, you can refuse to return read receipts, even if requested by the sender.

Techniques that don’t always work with all tracking technologies.

I would be quite inerested to know of any system that can provide 100% proof of opening
(I know a company that uses Rpost to provide proof of delivery to an email server but it is not clear if they can 100% tell if the email was opened)
If said email address was autoforwarding to a system outside the server or the email address is associated with a distribution group then I cannot understand how the originator could possibly be advised if it was read or not but I may be wrong

 

[35B]

I would be quite inerested to know of any system that can provide 100% proof of opening
(I know a company that uses Rpost to provide proof of delivery to an email server but it is not clear if they can 100% tell if the email was opened)
If said email address was autoforwarding to a system outside the server or the email address is associated with a distribution group then I cannot understand how the originator could possibly be advised if it was read or not but I may be wrong

No system is 100% reliable, but techniques like tracking pixels give better data than the old read receipt. I have my personal Outlook set not to provide receipts, but on a system I have access to the back end of, I have seen reports stating (correctly) whether mails have been seen, opened or read.

 

[Twicklatic]

I would be quite inerested to know of any system that can provide 100% proof of opening
(I know a company that uses Rpost to provide proof of delivery to an email server but it is not clear if they can 100% tell if the email was opened)
If said email address was autoforwarding to a system outside the server or the email address is associated with a distribution group then I cannot understand how the originator could possibly be advised if it was read or not but I may be wrong

Mail from MailChimp does give sender data eg when sent, when read with date & time mail was opened info together with how many times it was opened. Forwarding the email will be included as mail being opened.
However, can the sender prove that the info generated is correct?

 

[35B]

Mail from MailChimp does give sender data eg when sent, when read with date & time mail was opened info together with how many times it was opened. Forwarding the email will be included as mail being opened.
However, can the sender prove that the info generated is correct?

They don't need to - in a situation like this, it will be the intelligence gained about responses that may be useful

 

[Cloud Strife]

Just to follow up on some earlier responses: it's generally a bad idea in any situation to attend a voluntary interview. They will be looking for a hook to bring you to trial, or they will be looking for you to let something slip that will let them investigate further. It's simply best to ignore such requests, especially if they're holding the interview under PACE.

If they have evidence of fraud, let them bring charges, otherwise it's best to simply ignore them. Ultimately, there's no point giving them any leverage over you, and if you're certain that this is the only case where you've used a railcard wrongly (and the matter has been settled to their satisfaction), then there's nothing to gain by talking to them. It might be a different story if you'd been defrauding the railway for a considerable amount, and in this case, you might be well served attending the interview with legal representation.

 

[contrex]

No system is 100% reliable, but techniques like tracking pixels give better data than the old read receipt.

Web bugs we used to call them, and they are one reason I turn off downloading of external content in my email apps, and set Thunderbird to use the Tor proxy I have running on a Raspberry Pi on my home network.

 

[Egg Centric]

They don't need to - in a situation like this, it will be the intelligence gained about responses that may be useful

That's basically it - any technique is far too nuanced interpretation wise (both false positives and false negatives are possible, and the latter is likely with most mail clients these days under default settings) to be usable as proof of anything, so at worst you're supplying intelligence to a team that have shown themselves to not be frankly not very intelligent. I don't think it's anything to worry about, far better for OP to read the mails to see what they're saying imo.

 

[contrex]

at worst you're supplying intelligence to a team that have shown themselves to not be frankly not very intelligent. I don't think it's anything to worry about, far better for OP to read the mails to see what they're saying imo.

But these days I fear 'stupid' nearly as much as I fear 'clever'.

 

[Tetchytyke]

But these days I fear 'stupid' nearly as much as I fear 'clever'.

It's best to know what they're up to. Reading the email is useful knowledge. Just don't reply to it.