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Hi all, I have read through a number of threads here and you all give some great advice so I'm looking for some advice around my situation
I was caught short-faring on a journey from Great Missenden (GMN) to London Marylebone (MYB) with a ticket from Amersham (AMR) to MYB.
I was late and tried to buy a ticket for the train I was on but as it had departed I bought for the next station.
This is not the first time I had done this - there are to my knowledge a few other occasions when I have short-fared for similar journeys.
I had also received automatic refunds from Trainline on a few occasions when I shouldn't have.
Obviously this is unacceptable and I am deeply ashamed of what I did. At the time I treated it as a nameless faceless corporation and thus a "victimless crime" but I now realise there is no such thing.
I have attached the letter I received and my drafted response [now posted below] which admits to everything and contains further details.
I would be extremely appreciative of any advice on this, as it's causing me some stress
== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: ==
I can also post my response as text here if that would be useful
It's a very long letter, and it might be helpful if people want to provide comments or edit it to have a copy as text. It certainly makes it easier to read on some formats too.
I am writing in response to a letter I received from you dated 9th August 2024, which I received on the 14th August 2024.
I can confirm that the report is correct - I did travel on 30/04/2024 from Great Missenden to London Marylebone with a ticket valid only from Amersham to London Marylebone. I now recognise that what I did was illegal and completely unacceptable.
When confronted by Chiltern Railways’ inspector at London Marylebone, I initially panicked and lied to the inspector, but after further questioning I admitted to what I had done and answered truthfully all of his questions.
As you will see, I chose not to sign the form he had filled out, which was not for the reason of non-compliance but rather because the inspector would not let me read the form that I was signing. I was very polite with the inspector and I’m sure you will be able to see the full interaction via his body camera footage.
On that day, I was late for meeting my brother in London to console him after a breakup. When I arrived at Great Missenden station, the train was already arriving and so, given Great Missenden station has no barriers, and knowing that I would be able to purchase a ticket from Trainline, I got on the train.
I then attempted to buy a ticket for the train that I was on, but as the train had already departed, Trainline would not allow me to purchase that ticket, and so I purchased a ticket from the next station (Amersham.) I am aware that I could have purchased a ticket for a later train from Great Missenden given the ticket would have been valid for any train, but I believed this to be more suspicious. I now know that neither of these options are acceptable.
At the time I believed this to be the next best thing I could do, but I now recognise that “next best” is never good enough and I fully understand that what I did was breaking the law.
I know now that there are no excuses, and that boarding a train without a ticket that is valid for the entire journey is akin to theft from a shop. That realisation, and the realisation that this is not a victimless crime have made me deeply ashamed of myself for having been so ignorant, and frankly arrogant, as to believe what I was doing was ok.
I now realise that it also affects all my fellow passengers who are all paying the correct fares, and people such as yourselves who have to spend time investigating such incidents.
Your letter also makes mention of other occasions where I may have avoided the correct rail fare. Listed below are the occasions that I believe would be suspicious to yourselves:
[table redacted]
The first example here, is of a ticket I purchased for a return from Harrow-on-the-Hill to Sheffield (with the journey on Chiltern Railways being from Harrow-on-the-Hill to London Marylebone) from 03/05/2024 to 04/05/2024. I recognise this will look suspicious, however I never took this journey as the event with my friend in Sheffield was cancelled (my original plan having been to drive to another friend’s house in Harrow the night before, to then travel with him.)
I can evidence my not being in Sheffield with photos taken on the date in question. I feel it important to highlight this particular occasion as it is after I was caught, and Chiltern Railways could see this suspicious journey as evidence of me not having learned my lesson, which is not the case.
With reference to the journeys from Amersham to London Marylebone (including the latest instance where I was caught,) I believe some of them will be instances of short-faring for the same reasons as the case where I was caught, except I will have been late for work instead (again, not an excuse as there are no excuses for short-faring.) However I do not believe they all are, as I occasionally travel from Amersham (where my friends, gym and previous school are located) to London (where I work.)
Despite this, if Chiltern Railways were willing to offer an out-of-court settlement (which I recognise I am not in any way entitled to, nor deserving of) I would be willing to make a settlement with the assumption of these all being instances of short-faring. I hope that this serves as a demonstration of my remorse and understanding of the severity of my actions.
It was not mentioned in your original letter, but in the spirit of being honest about my history with Chiltern Railways, and proving my lesson has been learned, I would like to willingly disclose below a number of times where I have received a refund for journeys I have taken. To my knowledge (they go back a number of years and so I can’t find the emails for all of them,) all of these are instances where Trainline had automatically processed refunds on my behalf, and so despite it not being intentional, these are still fraudulent refunds.
[Table redacted]
I believe that I have covered here all instances that would appear suspicious to Chiltern Railways, but I am willing to fully comply with any investigation with respect to further incidents if Chiltern Railways believes there are others.
I would also like to make Chiltern Railways aware that I travel on their services regularly and usually purchase the correct valid tickets. Over the past 3 months since the incident, I have retained all tickets possible, and have gathered 12 day travelcards from Great Missenden to Zones 1-6 and 13 return tickets from Great Missenden to Amersham. This is representative of my typical level of travel on Chiltern Railways services. I can provide all of these in scans or the original physical copies, along with bank statements covering these and older transactions, if it would help the investigation.
As further evidence of my having learned my lesson, I was recently incorrectly given an automatic refund by Trainline, for a journey from Great Missenden to Amersham on 18/05/2024, when rail replacement buses were in effect. I spent many hours speaking with various customer support staff who told me many times it was not possible to revert the refund, however I persisted and eventually was able to do so. For my persistence, Trainline awarded me a £10 voucher which I have decided not to use, as a result of my previous short-faring.
I do not believe this to be deserving of praise, but simply wish to demonstrate my commitment to paying the correct fares following being caught. Again, I can evidence all of these claims if it would help your investigation.
I should also notify you that as of 09/08/2024 my address has now changed to the below for the purposes of any future correspondence:
[redacted]
As stated earlier, I am neither entitled to, nor deserving of it, but I would be extremely grateful if Chiltern Railways would be willing to settle this matter out of court, whether via a financial settlement or however Chiltern Railways deems appropriate. I am just beginning my career and a criminal record would be detrimental at this critical stage, but I recognise that my personal circumstances have no bearing on the unlawfulness and inexcusable nature of what I have done.
I wholeheartedly regret my actions and I hope I have demonstrated that I have learned my lesson, but I can assure you that I have. I hope you accept my most sincere apologies for time wasted and inconvenience caused, and recognise that it will never happen again.
It is long and I would try and shorten it a bit.
Noone can dispute that you are not entirely cooperating and so I imagine you would get full credit for that.
With this letter, I would feel positive about getting an out of court settlement.
It is long and I would try and shorten it a bit.
Noone can dispute that you are not entirely cooperating and so I imagine you would get full credit for that.
With this letter, I would feel positive about getting an out of court settlement.
Yes, send a paper copy signed-for as well as a mail, mentioning that you have done so. Belt and braces,!
To reduce the length, I would delete paras 3-7 entirely: you don't need to go into such detail, and the reader hasn't the time to digest it all.
I would take out the tables of offences and replace them by something like:
"My records show that I have several times bought tickets from Amersham, having not left enough time to buy before boarding at Gt M; however, I have also sometimes started my journeys from Amersham.
In addition, I have accepted auto-refunds via Trainline when I had actually travelled.
I have compiled a list of these short fares and refunds which I am happy to forward on request.
In mitigation, they represent only a small proportion of my total rail travel over the period, and I have no intention of repeating these offences."
(I'm sure you can improve on that )
PS the paragraph about Sheffield doesn't make sense to me, as you haven't tabled a ticket to Sheffield.
Yes, send a paper copy signed-for as well as a mail, mentioning that you have done so. Belt and braces,!
To reduce the length, I would delete paras 3-7 entirely: you don't need to go into such detail, and the reader hasn't the time to digest it all.
I would take out the tables of offences and replace them by something like:
"My records show that I have several times bought tickets from Amersham, having not left enough time to buy before boarding at Gt M; however, I have also sometimes started my journeys from Amersham.
In addition, I have accepted auto-refunds via Trainline when I had actually travelled.
I have compiled a list of these short fares and refunds which I am happy to forward on request.
In mitigation, they represent only a small proportion of my total rail travel over the period, and I have no intention of repeating these offences."
(I'm sure you can improve on that )
PS the paragraph about Sheffield doesn't make sense to me, as you haven't tabled a ticket to Sheffield.
Thank you so much for your help everyone. I've cut it down massively but it's still fairly long - any suggestions welcome
Saturday 17th August 2024
Customer Reference: [redacted]
Dear Sir/Madam,
I am writing in response to a letter I received from you dated 9th August 2024, which I received on the 14th August 2024.
I can confirm that the report is correct - I did travel on 30/04/2024 from Great Missenden to London Marylebone with a ticket valid only from Amersham to London Marylebone. I now recognise that what I did was illegal and completely unacceptable.
On that day, I was late for meeting my brother in London to console him after a breakup. As such, I was unable to buy a ticket in time prior to boarding. I attempted to buy a ticket for the train that I was on, but as the train had already departed, this was not possible, and so I purchased a ticket from the next station (Amersham.)
At the time I believed this to be the “next best” thing I could do, but I now know that there are no excuses for boarding a train without a ticket that is valid for the entire journey. I now realise that it is not a victimless crime - that it also affects all my fellow passengers who are all paying the correct fares, and people such as yourselves who have to spend time investigating such incidents.
That realisation has made me deeply ashamed of myself for having been so ignorant, and frankly arrogant, as to believe what I was doing was ok.
Your letter also makes mention of other occasions where I may have avoided the correct rail fare. My records show that I have bought tickets from Amersham several times, having not arrived with time to purchase a ticket before travelling. However, I have also sometimes started my journeys from Amersham (where my friends, gym, and previous school are located.)
I have also on occasion accepted automatic refunds from Trainline for tickets which I had actually used. Again, I recognise this to be wrong and am deeply regretful for not having made Trainline aware of these instances.
I have gone through my Trainline history and listed all instances of short-faring and incorrect refunds which I can forward to yourselves on request.
I should make Chiltern Railways aware, however, that these journeys represent only a small portion of my travel on their services, which I can evidence with physical tickets I have retained over the past 3 months and prior bank statements if it would help the investigation.
There is also an instance in my Trainline history of a ticket I purchased for a return from Harrow-on-the-Hill to Sheffield via London Marylebone from 03/05/2024 to 04/05/2024. I recognise this will look suspicious, however I never took this journey as the event with my friend in Sheffield was cancelled (my original plan having been to drive to another friend’s house in Harrow the night before, to then travel with him.)
I can evidence my not being in Sheffield with photos taken on the date in question. I feel it important to highlight this particular occasion as it is after I was caught, and Chiltern Railways could see this suspicious journey as evidence of me not having learned my lesson, which is not the case.
Despite this, if Chiltern Railways were willing to offer an out-of-court settlement (which I recognise I am not in any way entitled to, nor deserving of) I would be willing to make a settlement with the assumption of all suspicious journeys being instances of short-faring. I hope that this serves as a demonstration of my remorse and understanding of the severity of my actions.
As further evidence of my having learned my lesson, I was recently incorrectly given an automatic refund by Trainline, for a journey from Great Missenden to Amersham on 18/05/2024, when rail replacement buses were in effect. I spent many hours speaking with various customer support staff who told me many times it was not possible to revert the refund, however I persisted and eventually was able to do so. For my persistence, Trainline awarded me a £10 voucher which I have decided not to use, as a result of my previous short-faring.
I do not believe this to be deserving of praise, but simply wish to demonstrate my commitment to paying the correct fares following being caught. Again, I can evidence all of these claims if it would help your investigation.
I should also notify you that as of 09/08/2024 my address has now changed to the below for the purposes of any future correspondence:
[redacted]
As stated earlier, I am neither entitled to, nor deserving of it, but I would be extremely grateful if Chiltern Railways would be willing to settle this matter out of court, whether via a financial settlement or however Chiltern Railways deems appropriate. I am just beginning my career and a criminal record would be detrimental at this critical stage, but I recognise that my personal circumstances have no bearing on the unlawfulness and inexcusable nature of what I have done.
I wholeheartedly regret my actions and I hope I have demonstrated that I have learned my lesson, but I can assure you that I have. I hope you accept my most sincere apologies for time wasted and inconvenience caused, and recognise that it will never happen again.
Yours sincerely,
[redacted]
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The initial letter from Chiltern makes reference to potential Railcard issues - I gather no such issue is relevant in this case? It is, I presume, a fairly basic ‘cover-all’ template?
OP, you have no way yet of knowing what, if anything, has been indentified to constitute possible other offences. As always in any criminal matter, basic advice is that it falls to the authorities to prove guilt to the required standard, there is no obligation on the accused to incriminate themselves. The letter received invites any “mitigation”, and sets out that in the absence of any such being provided, proceedings are likely. I’m fairly sure that very few would suggest that your offering is in any way mitigatory, even if it is disarmingly honest!
This sort of basic advice is usually furnished quite early on within these pages, but seemingly not yet on this occasion?
Do you mean paragraph 6 of the letter they sent (talking about seeking legal advice) or my original 6th paragraph (talking about why I short-fared on that date)?
I agree it is too long, I'm just unsure which details to exclude as they all seem important to me
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I did think about this, but if they have my Trainline account, they can see all of it, so I'd rather get ahead of everything rather than they find out without me saying anything.
Do you mean paragraph 6 of the letter they sent (talking about seeking legal advice) or my original 6th paragraph (talking about why I short-fared on that date)?
I agree it is too long, I'm just unsure which details to exclude as they all seem important to me
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Yes, there's no such issue here - I presented a valid Railcard on the day which the inspector took a photo of.
I did think about this, but if they have my Trainline account, they can see all of it, so I'd rather get ahead of everything rather than they find out without me saying anything.
Yes, send a paper copy signed-for as well as a mail, mentioning that you have done so. Belt and braces,!
To reduce the length, I would delete paras 3-7 entirely: you don't need to go into such detail, and the reader hasn't the time to digest it all.
I would take out the tables of offences and replace them by something like:
"My records show that I have several times bought tickets from Amersham, having not left enough time to buy before boarding at Gt M; however, I have also sometimes started my journeys from Amersham.
In addition, I have accepted auto-refunds via Trainline when I had actually travelled.
I have compiled a list of these short fares and refunds which I am happy to forward on request.
In mitigation, they represent only a small proportion of my total rail travel over the period, and I have no intention of repeating these offences."
Yes, send a paper copy signed-for as well as a mail, mentioning that you have done so. Belt and braces,!
To reduce the length, I would delete paras 3-7 entirely: you don't need to go into such detail, and the reader hasn't the time to digest it all.
I would take out the tables of offences and replace them by something like:
"My records show that I have several times bought tickets from Amersham, having not left enough time to buy before boarding at Gt M; however, I have also sometimes started my journeys from Amersham.
In addition, I have accepted auto-refunds via Trainline when I had actually travelled.
I have compiled a list of these short fares and refunds which I am happy to forward on request.
In mitigation, they represent only a small proportion of my total rail travel over the period, I never actively instigated the Trainline refunds, and I have no intention of repeating these offences."
It may be worth adding the phrase I've added in bold, if it's true. (I've never used Trainline so don't know for sure that "auto-refunds" don't require any trigger from the passenger)
Thanks everyone so much for your help. I managed to reduce the letter to a little over a page, which I know is still longer than ideal but I'm fairly happy with it and will send it off now.
Let me know if you'd like to see the final version, but otherwise I'll keep you updated with any progress
The initial letter from Chiltern makes reference to potential Railcard issues - I gather no such issue is relevant in this case? It is, I presume, a fairly basic ‘cover-all’ template?
OP, you have no way yet of knowing what, if anything, has been indentified to constitute possible other offences. As always in any criminal matter, basic advice is that it falls to the authorities to prove guilt to the required standard, there is no obligation on the accused to incriminate themselves. The letter received invites any “mitigation”, and sets out that in the absence of any such being provided, proceedings are likely. I’m fairly sure that very few would suggest that your offering is in any way mitigatory, even if it is disarmingly honest!
This sort of basic advice is usually furnished quite early on within these pages, but seemingly not yet on this occasion?
+1 here Towers. Thank god I'm not the only one. I have to object to some of the "advice" on here which, however well-intentioned, is legally misguided in the extreme. The default reply on here is to "admit wrongdoing, show contrition, reach an out of court settlement" which is fine and sensible. However that does not mean admitting wrongdoing and incriminating yourself on unrelated matters in the train company mitigation letter and making the situation worse than it needs to be (i.e get an out of court settlement for the incident Chiltern have you over a barrel, don't incriminate yourself on other tickets/short faring, and never short fare again)
If you approached a solicitor they would say concede on the what you have been caught on and what incident report they have on file, but don't get involved when they "go fishing" on other items (i.e past ticket purchases) and hope you trip up. The letter refers to an incident report which Chiltern believes warrants court summons - at the very least an out of court settlement. You're bang to rights, they have a report on file confirming you did short fare on that date. This matter is all you need to respond to, show contrition and reach an out of court settlement.
Chiltern are "fishing" by requesting ticket data, trying to put X & Y together and to force you into an admission without a thread of tangible evidence. A purchase of a train ticket is not evidence of wrongdoing and any solicitor would advocate Miranda "no comment" rights on this. Without revenue officer, CCTV, a witness etc there is no evidence you did short fare. Given this happened nearly 4 months ago I doubt they would have cast-iron evidence to demonstrate further short-faring offences.
I agree rather than the letter demonstrating "mitigation" for the offence as Chiltern have asked for, you are basically incriminating yourself for the other instances and which they may still pursue further and believe warrant taking to magistrates. Short faring once versus doing it 10+ times is completely different. I honestly feel with that letter of guilt you are more likely to get a court summons than an out of court settlement.
I've already sent my letter... What you've said is all true and I'm really stressed thinking about it
My reduced version didn't list any further offences (no specific dates or anything) so I suppose it's not a direct admission of guilt to any other offences, and they would still need to prove guilt there if it were to go to court?
I just wanted to be as honest as possible to prove to them that I've learned my lesson but if what you're saying is true then I might have caused myself even more trouble
+1 here Towers. Thank god I'm not the only one. I have to object to some of the "advice" on here which, however well-intentioned, is legally misguided in the extreme. The default reply on here is to "admit wrongdoing, show contrition, reach an out of court settlement" which is fine and sensible. However that does not mean admitting wrongdoing and incriminating yourself on unrelated matters in the train company mitigation letter and making the situation worse than it needs to be (i.e get an out of court settlement for the incident Chiltern have you over a barrel, don't incriminate yourself on other tickets/short faring, and never short fare again)
If you approached a solicitor they would say concede on the what you have been caught on and what incident report they have on file, but don't get involved when they "go fishing" on other items (i.e past ticket purchases) and hope you trip up. The letter refers to an incident report which Chiltern believes warrants court summons - at the very least an out of court settlement. You're bang to rights, they have a report on file confirming you did short fare on that date. This matter is all you need to respond to, show contrition and reach an out of court settlement.
Chiltern are "fishing" by requesting ticket data, trying to put X & Y together and to force you into an admission without a thread of tangible evidence. A purchase of a train ticket is not evidence of wrongdoing and any solicitor would advocate Miranda "no comment" rights on this. Without revenue officer, CCTV, a witness etc there is no evidence you did short fare. Given this happened nearly 4 months ago I doubt they would have cast-iron evidence to demonstrate further short-faring offences.
I agree rather than the letter demonstrating "mitigation" for the offence as Chiltern have asked for, you are basically incriminating yourself for the other instances and which they may still pursue further and believe warrant taking to magistrates. Short faring once versus doing it 10+ times is completely different. I honestly feel with that letter of guilt you are more likely to get a court summons than an out of court settlement.
This is actually quite poor advice. Chiltern have data which they use to leverage the potential for prosecution of a single offence. Admitting that single offence and saying 'no comment' regarding other ticket purchases will not result in a settlement being offered as train companies do not just shrug shoulders and give up. As for solicitors, we are well aware that in such cases they do tend towards admitting previous cases in order to facilitate settlements being reached, as many cases on the forum demonstrate.
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My point is Chiltern have 'ticket data' for same journey but no actual evidence that short faring ocurred with these tickets (no revenue officer/MG11 form, no witness, no CCTV etc) to prove this. Without evidence the casual link of tickets would not stack up in court.
Seemed like the oldest trick in the book to me. They went fishing with the "we have noted you have other tickets for this journey, would you like to elaborate further?" and got an interesting answer they'd like to hear.
My point is Chiltern have 'ticket data' for same journey but no actual evidence that short faring ocurred with these tickets (no revenue officer/MG11 form, no witness, no CCTV etc) to prove this. Without evidence the casual link of tickets would not stack up in court.
Seemed like the oldest trick in the book to me. They went fishing with the "we have noted you have other tickets for this journey, would you like to elaborate further?" and got an interesting answer they'd like to hear.
The OP has a choice. Either they fess up to previous occurrences, and they will very likely get an out of court settlement reflecting those previous instances too, or stay silent on those previous cases.
If they stay silent then there is a high likelihood that Chiltern will prosecute for the one case they have rock solid evidence for. They don’t need to worry about previous cases.
Most people coming here for advice are focused on not getting a criminal record, which your approach runs a high risk of failing to achieve.
This is actually quite poor advice. Chiltern have data which they use to leverage the potential for prosecution of a single offence. Admitting that single offence and saying 'no comment' regarding other ticket purchases will not result in a settlement being offered as train companies do not just shrug shoulders and give up.
If they took the OP to court they would receive only the single fare evaded anyway in compensation, as this is the only offence for which they have the requisite evidence and could mount a prosecution for.
If they took the OP to court they would receive only the single fare evaded anyway in compensation, as this is the only offence for which they have the requisite evidence and could mount a prosecution for.
My point is Chiltern have 'ticket data' for same journey but no actual evidence that short faring ocurred with these tickets (no revenue officer/MG11 form, no witness, no CCTV etc) to prove this. Without evidence the casual link of tickets would not stack up in court.
If the OP's list (now understandably redacted) is correct, the evidence will be unscanned tickets from a gated station while the next station is unbarriered and the fare is noticeably higher. Oh, and station A is in the Oyster area.
A court might be invited to draw inferences...
I agree the OP should not have mentioned unlawful refunds.
+1 here Towers. Thank god I'm not the only one. I have to object to some of the "advice" on here which, however well-intentioned, is legally misguided in the extreme. The default reply on here is to "admit wrongdoing, show contrition, reach an out of court settlement" which is fine and sensible. However that does not mean admitting wrongdoing and incriminating yourself on unrelated matters in the train company mitigation letter and making the situation worse than it needs to be (i.e get an out of court settlement for the incident Chiltern have you over a barrel, don't incriminate yourself on other tickets/short faring, and never short fare again)
If you approached a solicitor they would say concede on the what you have been caught on and what incident report they have on file, but don't get involved when they "go fishing" on other items (i.e past ticket purchases) and hope you trip up. The letter refers to an incident report which Chiltern believes warrants court summons - at the very least an out of court settlement. You're bang to rights, they have a report on file confirming you did short fare on that date. This matter is all you need to respond to, show contrition and reach an out of court settlement.
Chiltern are "fishing" by requesting ticket data, trying to put X & Y together and to force you into an admission without a thread of tangible evidence. A purchase of a train ticket is not evidence of wrongdoing and any solicitor would advocate Miranda "no comment" rights on this. Without revenue officer, CCTV, a witness etc there is no evidence you did short fare. Given this happened nearly 4 months ago I doubt they would have cast-iron evidence to demonstrate further short-faring offences.
I agree rather than the letter demonstrating "mitigation" for the offence as Chiltern have asked for, you are basically incriminating yourself for the other instances and which they may still pursue further and believe warrant taking to magistrates. Short faring once versus doing it 10+ times is completely different. I honestly feel with that letter of guilt you are more likely to get a court summons than an out of court settlement.
But there are other points - a fare evader may feel total remorse and will not be able to put it behind them until all the issues are resolved. In that case, for their own peace of mind they may well prefer to have all the other cases in the open and taken into account.
And acting as you suggest may almost certainly result in a criminal prosecution for the single case. Cooperating with Chiltern may mean an out of court settlement.
But there are other points - a fare evader may feel total remorse and will not be able to put it behind them until all the issues are resolved. In that case, for their own peace of mind they may well prefer to have all the other cases in the open and taken into account.
And acting as you suggest may almost certainly result in a criminal prosecution for the single case. Cooperating with Chiltern may mean an out of court settlement.
This is actually quite poor advice. Chiltern have data which they use to leverage the potential for prosecution of a single offence. Admitting that single offence and saying 'no comment' regarding other ticket purchases will not result in a settlement being offered as train companies do not just shrug shoulders and give up. As for solicitors, we are well aware that in such cases they do tend towards admitting previous cases in order to facilitate settlements being reached, as many cases on the forum demonstrate.
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Academic at this stage seeing as the OP has said that they have already submitted their communication, however I would suggest that laying out the finer details of numerous instances of two unrelated types of offending across multiple occasions, without first having any idea of what evidence the prosecuting authority have, is unlikely to be the advice given by a solicitor.
The initial letter from Chiltern makes reference to potential Railcard issues - I gather no such issue is relevant in this case? It is, I presume, a fairly basic ‘cover-all’ template?
OP, you have no way yet of knowing what, if anything, has been indentified to constitute possible other offences. As always in any criminal matter, basic advice is that it falls to the authorities to prove guilt to the required standard, there is no obligation on the accused to incriminate themselves. The letter received invites any “mitigation”, and sets out that in the absence of any such being provided, proceedings are likely. I’m fairly sure that very few would suggest that your offering is in any way mitigatory, even if it is disarmingly honest!
This sort of basic advice is usually furnished quite early on within these pages, but seemingly not yet on this occasion?
+1 here Towers. Thank god I'm not the only one. I have to object to some of the "advice" on here which, however well-intentioned, is legally misguided in the extreme. The default reply on here is to "admit wrongdoing, show contrition, reach an out of court settlement" which is fine and sensible. However that does not mean admitting wrongdoing and incriminating yourself on unrelated matters in the train company mitigation letter and making the situation worse than it needs to be (i.e get an out of court settlement for the incident Chiltern have you over a barrel, don't incriminate yourself on other tickets/short faring, and never short fare again)
If you approached a solicitor they would say concede on the what you have been caught on and what incident report they have on file, but don't get involved when they "go fishing" on other items (i.e past ticket purchases) and hope you trip up. The letter refers to an incident report which Chiltern believes warrants court summons - at the very least an out of court settlement. You're bang to rights, they have a report on file confirming you did short fare on that date. This matter is all you need to respond to, show contrition and reach an out of court settlement.
Chiltern are "fishing" by requesting ticket data, trying to put X & Y together and to force you into an admission without a thread of tangible evidence. A purchase of a train ticket is not evidence of wrongdoing and any solicitor would advocate Miranda "no comment" rights on this. Without revenue officer, CCTV, a witness etc there is no evidence you did short fare. Given this happened nearly 4 months ago I doubt they would have cast-iron evidence to demonstrate further short-faring offences.
I agree rather than the letter demonstrating "mitigation" for the offence as Chiltern have asked for, you are basically incriminating yourself for the other instances and which they may still pursue further and believe warrant taking to magistrates. Short faring once versus doing it 10+ times is completely different. I honestly feel with that letter of guilt you are more likely to get a court summons than an out of court settlement.
Care needs to be taken when replying to letters from train companies. My view is that you should answert the questions you've been asked truthfully but you are not required to incrimiate yourself either.
Where it gets a bit harder is when you're trying to persuade the train company to settle out of court. Clearly you need to co-operate with the train company's investigation and if there's any indication from them that they will audit your online ticket purchase history then, on balance, I think it is best to 'fess up' to what has happened.
Where it gets a bit harder is when you're trying to persuade the train company to settle out of court. Clearly you need to co-operate with the train company's investigation and if there's any indication from them that they will audit your online ticket purchase history
Or indeed, as in the case in question, the letter received specifically said that they have already audited your purchases and mentions "other occasions" where they believe you have done the same thing. In which case I would suggest it is extremely inadvisable to stay silent, where you know they have a sure fire case against you for the one offence.
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