SWR prosecution letter

[noname1234]

Hi everyone,

I recently received a letter from South Western Railway saying they are investigating me for short-faring.

I was stopped by a revenue inspector at **London Waterloo railway station after travelling from Vauxhall railway station and they said my ticket wasn’t valid for the journey I had made. I was honest with the inspector at the time and gave my details.

I’ve now received the investigation letter and I’ve written back explaining that I understand it was wrong and that I’m very embarrassed about the situation. I genuinely didn’t realise how seriously this would be taken at the time and thought it would just be a warning.

I have a couple of concerns and wondered if anyone here has experience with SWR investigations:

1. Do SWR normally check your entire ticket purchase history (e.g. Trainline or online accounts) when investigating short-faring, or do they usually just focus on the incident they caught you for?
2. I also sometimes travelled using a railcard discount that I shouldn’t really have been using. The inspector didn’t ask to see proof of the railcard at the time. Is this something SWR might investigate as part of the case?
3. If anyone has been through a similar situation with SWR, what usually happens next? Is a settlement/fine the most common outcome for a first case?

I know I made a mistake and I’m fully prepared to pay whatever settlement they ask for. I’m just quite anxious about what they might look into as part of the investigation.

Any advice or experiences would be really appreciated.

Thank you.

 

[jfollows]

Yes to 1 & 2 above.
Yes to 3, they will settle out of court if you engage with them when they write to you.
Search the forum for similar cases.
They know about the Vauxhall thing and they will usually settle if you admit to your mistakes and offer to pay their expenses.

They can only prosecute you for the occasion on which they stopped you.

So you either agree to settle out of court based on what they ask for, or you go to court for one case, for which you will get a criminal record and a fine if found guilty. Most people find settling out of court better.

 

[Fawkes Cat]

They can only prosecute you for the occasion on which they stopped you.

even if they do prosecute, the punishment will be a fine, not prison. To get sent to prison, you would have to have greatly aggravated things - which would probably be something like physically attacking railway staff

 

[noname1234]

Yes to 1 & 2 above.
Yes to 3, they will settle out of court if you engage with them when they write to you.
Search the forum for similar cases.
They know about the Vauxhall thing and they will usually settle if you admit to your mistakes and offer to pay their expenses.

They can only prosecute you for the occasion on which they stopped you.

So you either agree to settle out of court based on what they ask for, or you go to court for one case, for which you will get a criminal record and a fine if found guilty. Most people find settling out of court better.

thank you, also I’ve got a letter stating that my account has hightlighted other potential inconsistencies but the email didn’t provided me any extra information aparting from the time when I get caught but just asked me to fill in the information form. I was a bit panic at that time so I didn’t inform them the other times I misused railcard and short traveling. What does it mean? Will they send me more letter to ask me to explain other situations or they will simply gather the information themselves and send it to me? Thank you.

 

[jfollows]

I think it would help if you post what you have received here, with personal information obscured of course.
See https://www.railforums.co.uk/threads/please-read-before-posting-in-disputes-prosecutions.77759/

 

[z444z]

I was stopped by a revenue inspector at **London Waterloo railway station after travelling from Vauxhall railway station and they said my ticket wasn’t valid for the journey I had made. I was honest with the inspector at the time and gave my details.

You’ve said here that you had travelled from Vauxhall, is that correct? What ticket did you hold?

1. Do SWR normally check your entire ticket purchase history (e.g. Trainline or online accounts) when investigating short-faring, or do they usually just focus on the incident they caught you for?

SWR almost always check purchasing history and may check accounts other than the one used to purchase the ticket they caught you using. Don’t delete any accounts, they’ll still be able to access the data but you won’t so it puts you at a disadvantage. They may go many years back.

1. I also sometimes travelled using a railcard discount that I shouldn’t really have been using. The inspector didn’t ask to see proof of the railcard at the time. Is this something SWR might investigate as part of the case?

Most likely yes.

1. If anyone has been through a similar situation with SWR, what usually happens next? Is a settlement/fine the most common outcome for a first case?

They will almost certainly settle, but you’ll need to pay the full Anytime fares for every journey you made without a valid ticket, plus an admin fee of roughly £150 but could be more if there’s a lot of history for them to go through.

Next step is to draft a response with our help but we need to clarify exactly what’s happened first.

 

[noname1234]

They’ve sent me a reply via email with:

You may also provide any explanations and/or mitigations regarding your travel history which we will pass on to our Prosecutions Team who review each case individually.

There are so many other times that I’ve misused a railcard. Should I provide them all the details and how?

 

[z444z]

Could you answer my question at the start of post #6?

You don’t need to provide them with all the details. Let them investigate, it’s not in your interests to do it for them. What you need to do is send a proper response - I know you already replied but I imagine it may not have hit all the necessary points: acknowledge, apologise, commit to never doing it again, asking to settle, and offering to pay the fares due and admin costs. Have a look through other threads for inspiration and post a draft here for us to review

 

[AlterEgo]

SWR have already detected the other offending and allude to it in their standard letter the OP has received.

 

[z444z]

SWR have already detected the other offending and allude to it in their standard letter the OP has received.

How do you know, I don’t think we’ve seen that letter? I know it’s likely but I don’t think the OP needs to spell it out for them, just to apologise for not paying the correct fares

 

[WesternLancer]

OP could respond along lines of asking them for a list of all the occasion they believe the correct fare has not been paid so that they can co-operate with the investigation as they are anxious to resolve the matter without court action.

Tho I agree it's always helpful to see anonymised copies of the original correspondence in full to be sure the best advice is given.

 

[Haywain]

How do you know, I don’t think we’ve seen that letter?

This is what the OP said:

also I’ve got a letter stating that my account has hightlighted other potential inconsistencies

 

[AlterEgo]

If the OP audits their ticket purchases and tells us where they've really been travelling from we can guess the likely settlement figure. It will be at the Anytime Single rate for each offence.

 

[island]

Did you travel from Vauxhall, or from somewhere else?

If you travelled from Vauxhall, did you scan your ticket at the ticket gates to enter Vauxhall station?

 

[z444z]

This is what the OP said:

Yes I've seen that, but to me at least it doesn't clearly point to the railcard abuse having been spotted, and even if it does I don't think that means the OP needs to specifically own up to it.

 

[eleganturtle]

I am in the same situation, they have said that there are inconsistencies however haven't specified. Is the right move to ask for a list of the specific circumstances? And if so, is it the right move to admit that it was the incorrect ticket, how would you go about saying this? If they are asking over multiple instances then would you address all of it together and say sorry for all of these times or explain each specifically.

To be frank, I'm not sure how to phrase the wording in order to not incriminate myself more while also apologising.

 

[island]

I am in the same situation, they have said that there are inconsistencies however haven't specified. Is the right move to ask for a list of the specific circumstances? And if so, is it the right move to admit that it was the incorrect ticket, how would you go about saying this? If they are asking over multiple instances then would you address all of it together and say sorry for all of these times or explain each specifically.

To be frank, I'm not sure how to phrase the wording in order to not incriminate myself more while also apologising.

The OP hasn't been on in over 2 months so it's very unlikely they'll be back.

Please concentrate on seeking advice in your own thread.