Season ticket expired by one day

[Puffing Devil]

As happens with depressing regularity, this thread is fallen into pointless speculation, postulating and point scoring that adds little to the OPs situation.

Pizza tester Please ignore all this noise and post back here when you hear more from Northern Rail. You will then get some constructive opinion pertinent to your situation from some of the board members who have experience of the court system and/or the internal workings of the TOCs.

 

[Flamingo]

And when your analysis shows that you often have someone providing false information on certain services you know where to concentrate your resources on catching the deliberate fare dodgers.

It doesn't take a needlessly complicated system like that to know where to concentrate efforts.

 

[pizza_tester]

Just to give an update, I received a letter from northern rail ‘debt recovery and prosecutions unit’ asking for £4.50 a couple of days ago. I have paid that using their premium number line.

I’d like to thank the people on this forum for their advice. I am however disheartened at the attitude of zero tolerance shown by some members of the forum even when there are mitigating circumstances. Sure, the law is the law but there has to be some leeway otherwise you would end up making criminals of ordinary people.

By way of example, the police don’t normally chase and prosecute someone who is driving at 31 in a 30 zone. Common sense has to prevail at some point.

I am glad that someone at Northern Rail has used common sense and taken my circumstances into account.

Thinking back over other incidents, in light of the predicament I found myself in, I once fell asleep on the train coming back from Leeds, and had to be woken up by the passenger in the window seat, who coincidently also wanted to get off at Halifax. If he had not done that, and I had remained on the train, I guess that would have been another ‘criminal offence’

… and on the subject of ‘criminal offences’, I once caught the wrong train back home. I think it was the Manchester Victoria via Cottingley, (They changed the platforms after I had checked for my train on their board). Anyway, once I realised I was on the wrong train, I approached the conductor and was told It was a different route and would not go to Halifax, but would stop at sowerby bridge, which is the next stop after Halifax. Nothing was said about paying for this extra stop, and I assumed nothing of it. I was more worried about my wife finding the train station at Sowerby Bridge to pick me up.

I now know better. Traveling on the trains is a risky business and the smallest lapse in concentration can lead to a criminal record.

Although I may have given the impression of a ‘serial criminal’, I actually have over 2 years of back to back weekly tickets and receipts including credit card statements. I do understand that there are people who deliberately evade paying the fare and will try to manipulate the system and I do not for one minute condone fare avoidance but am amazed at how individuals like me can end up in situations like this.

 

[Greenback]

Thanks for the update, and I apologise for the delay of a couple of days in approving your post.

 

[trentside]

Likewise, just to add my apologies to Greenback's - I'd also missed the post requiring approval.

Thanks for the update and pleased to see common sense prevailed.

As you appreciate, it can be easy for people to end up in the wrong on the railway and the letters you receive can make things seem very scary. To be honest a prosecution in this case would have been difficult for Northern to say the least.

Hopefully you can have more trouble free journeys in future.

 

[najaB]

I am however disheartened at the attitude of zero tolerance shown by some members of the forum even when there are mitigating circumstances. Sure, the law is the law but there has to be some leeway otherwise you would end up making criminals of ordinary people.

By way of example, the police don’t normally chase and prosecute someone who is driving at 31 in a 30 zone. Common sense has to prevail at some point.

Thousands of times, every day, discretion is applied. You yourself said you have seen people being sold tickets on board rather than being investigated for prosecution. The fact that this time you found yourself falling foul of the regulations is unfortunate, but the fact is that some people do try it on and some innocent people will end up being caught in the net.

 

[crehld]

Thanks pizza_tester for the update, and I'm glad you came to a reasonable resolution with Northern.