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hey guys, seeing some advice after receiving prosecution letter from Thames link. I received a penalty fare last week as I bought a ticket into my journey, extending my usual journey from Cambridge to King’s Cross. Because of this fine I today wasn’t able to show a valid ticket for my usual Cambridge north to King’s Cross journey. I know it’s bad but I usually get a ticket to get through the barrier at Cambridge and then the other end at King’s Cross as I’m struggling to afford my commuting costs. I got very flustered when challenged and said I had travelled from Letchworth on my journey as I knew if asked to pay the fare this would be the only stop on the journey I’d be able to afford at this point. He challenged me and said the barriers are never open there to which I didn’t really have an answer. The thing I am worried about is my purchase history- I have a regular pattern of buying the tickets each end of my journey so Cambridge north to Cambridge and then Finsbury to King’s Cross. I’m worried if they check this they won’t even agree to settle outside of court. I am also worried if I have to actually go to court that I won’t be able to afford the £1000 fine. My question is do you think Thames link would still agree after writing a letter and offering to pay admin costs and the penalty fare so settle outside of court as well as my lies about getting on at Letchworth that day? Any advice much appreciated
How many times have you done this? You’ll be well advised to count them up on your journey record - you can be sure GTR will be doing so, so best you know!
hey guys, seeing some advice after receiving prosecution letter from Thames link. I received a penalty fare last week as I bought a ticket into my journey, extending my usual journey from Cambridge to King’s Cross. Because of this fine I today wasn’t able to show a valid ticket for my usual Cambridge north to King’s Cross journey. I know it’s bad but I usually get a ticket to get through the barrier at Cambridge and then the other end at King’s Cross as I’m struggling to afford my commuting costs. I got very flustered when challenged and said I had travelled from Letchworth on my journey as I knew if asked to pay the fare this would be the only stop on the journey I’d be able to afford at this point. He challenged me and said the barriers are never open there to which I didn’t really have an answer. The thing I am worried about is my purchase history- I have a regular pattern of buying the tickets each end of my journey so Cambridge north to Cambridge and then Finsbury to King’s Cross. I’m worried if they check this they won’t even agree to settle outside of court. I am also worried if I have to actually go to court that I won’t be able to afford the £1000 fine. My question is do you think Thames link would still agree after writing a letter and offering to pay admin costs and the penalty fare so settle outside of court as well as my lies about getting on at Letchworth that day? Any advice much appreciated
If you have really received a penalty fare (and you may not have done - the railway uses some quite confusing language) and you have paid it then there's a good chance that you won't hear anything more about this.
But now you have come to the railway's attention there's some chance that they will look at your ticketing history and will send you a letter asking for details of what you did: that's likely to end in you having to pay them a lot of money because of the journeys you didn't pay for.
But for both of these, the advice is the same:
- don't get in touch with the railway until they get in touch with you. If they don't want to take it further then don't poke the bear: if they do want to go further you need to know what questions they want answered.
- you now need to start paying the right fare every time. If (when) the railway find out you have been fare dodging then at the very least they will want all the money back at once: it's cheaper to pay the right fare at the right time!
How many times have you done this? You’ll be well advised to count them up on your journey record - you can be sure GTR will be doing so, so best you know!
If you have really received a penalty fare (and you may not have done - the railway uses some quite confusing language) and you have paid it then there's a good chance that you won't hear anything more about this.
But now you have come to the railway's attention there's some chance that they will look at your ticketing history and will send you a letter asking for details of what you did: that's likely to end in you having to pay them a lot of money because of the journeys you didn't pay for.
But for both of these, the advice is the same:
- don't get in touch with the railway until they get in touch with you. If they don't want to take it further then don't poke the bear: if they do want to go further you need to know what questions they want answered.
- you now need to start paying the right fare every time. If (when) the railway find out you have been fare dodging then at the very least they will want all the money back at once: it's cheaper to pay the right fare at the right time!
Thanks for your speedy reply! Apologies I think my original message wasn’t the clearest- I received and payed a fine 2 weeks ago & then today was cautioned, provided a witness statement and they said they’ll send a prosecution letter to my address. Do you think now they’ll look into my purchase history and completely discredit the chances of settling outside of court as they’ll probably workout it wasn’t a one time thing I will wait to receive the proper letter and from now on buy the correct tickets. The issue is I also lied about where I was travelling from that day so I’m caught in a deep web of lies! Safe to say I’ve definitely learnt my lesson that it doesn’t save you anything in the long term!
I received and payed a fine 2 weeks ago & then today was cautioned, provided a witness statement and they said they’ll send a prosecution letter to my address.
If you go to court you will not be fined £1000. That is the maximum fine that can be applied and there are various reasons why it cannot be applied for a first offence. However, the penalty applied by a court will be a total of a fine, a victim surcharge, the prosecution costs and the fare avoided; the fine would be based on your income but the 'standard' amount is £440. However, if you cooperate with GTR they are likely to agree to an out of court settlement, but will want immediate payment whereas a court will generally allow payment in instalments. You can't do anything now until you receive a letter from GTR, other than start thinking about how you will pay a settlement if it is offered. And, right now, start buying tickets that cover your full journey.
So, having been caught fare dodging two weeks ago, you thought that continuing to do so was a good idea?
Yes, you are.
If you go to court you will not be fined £1000. That is the maximum fine that can be applied and there are various reasons why it cannot be applied for a first offence. However, the penalty applied by a court will be a total of a fine, a victim surcharge, the prosecution costs and the fare avoided; the fine would be based on your income but the 'standard' amount is £440. However, if you cooperate with GTR they are likely to agree to an out of court settlement, but will want immediate payment whereas a court will generally allow payment in instalments. You can't do anything now until you receive a letter from GTR, other than start thinking about how you will pay a settlement if it is offered. And, right now, start buying tickets that cover your full journey.
I would fully endorse this - I think my practical advice of what to do next (i.e. wait for the railway to contact you, and as @Haywain has rightly emphasised, start paying the right fare) remains intact. The outcome to work for is now to settle this out of court.
Just to make it clear they will almost certainly be now looking at your on line journey history - so you should and can do the same.
The Penalty Fare was a 'warning shot' (it's not technically a fine, though of course it seems like one). They record your details and when caught again they know you are still chancing it - so they have escalated the process.
As mentioned they will now almost certainly look at all your ticket buying history - they will look for anything they think is odd (eg tickets regularly bought from a place that is not near your address, but is closer to a likely destination) - and they will seek to charge you the full fare for all the missing travel (potentially at the Anytime Peak rate even if you travelled off peak)
See some other threads involving Thameslink to see how this plays out for people.
If you want to avoid prosecution and a criminal record then you need to be prepared to pay the fares they will ask you for as part of an 'out of court settlement' - that means having the funds ready to pay, in full, promptly, if you can persuade them to offer you such a settlement. You don't have to pay it but the alternative will be to be taken to court about it, where you will be prosecuted as explained above, and they will win (you probably already admitted to them you did not have the correct ticket when you were stopped unless you said for example ' no comment' to everything they asked you).
That's why you should check your trainline account carefully and make a list of the travel where you evaded paying the correct fare and calculate up how much that might be. If you can' afford to pay that you would be best advised to think about legal ways in which you can find the money to pay it - eg borrow it from family or friends, or work out what it would cost you if you had to borrow it from the bank.
Alternatively if you go down the court route should it come to that you can declare your income and expenditure to the court and they will set the fine accordingly, and you can request payment to the court in installments. But it will be some time before it gets to that so you can give it some thought. Be aware that criminal record might also have other future 'costs' you can't predict - eg if you have to declare it on job applications for example.
For now the things you can do are
- buy a season ticket or railcard if it will reduce your cost of travel (this i something you can tell them you have done in your letter reply to show you have changed your ways) - this is an important part of persuading them not to prosecute you
- work out as precisely as you can how much fare evasion you have done and seek to save up that money
- 100% buy the correct travel tickets from now on, because you are totally on their radar. They are under no obligation to offer you an out of court settlement so don't provoke them
- search this forum for other threads involving Thameslink to get an idea how this will play out (and see what advice is usually given on how to reply to the sort of letter you have been sent)
- draft your reply to the prosecution threat letter and post it here so people can help you respond to get the best outcome possible under the circumstances.
Hi Jon- unfortunately probably more times than I could count. I know it’s nothing to be proud of. I’d say twice a week for the past 3 months!
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Hi there,
Thanks for your speedy reply! Apologies I think my original message wasn’t the clearest- I received and payed a fine 2 weeks ago & then today was cautioned, provided a witness statement and they said they’ll send a prosecution letter to my address. Do you think now they’ll look into my purchase history and completely discredit the chances of settling outside of court as they’ll probably workout it wasn’t a one time thing I will wait to receive the proper letter and from now on buy the correct tickets. The issue is I also lied about where I was travelling from that day so I’m caught in a deep web of lies! Safe to say I’ve definitely learnt my lesson that it doesn’t save you anything in the long term!
We’ve seen worse, and GTR do tend to offer settlements even with the level of fare evasion that they are likely to uncover here.
They are used to people lying when stopped too, and it doesn’t appear to make any difference so long as you cooperate, are apologetic, and persuade them that you won’t do it again.
We are aware of an issue with emails from the Forum to Microsoft-based email accounts (hotmail/outlook/live.com email addresses). This is being looked into currently, thanks for your patience meanwhile.
