I agree but they just told me to write to the debt recovery company which I did and in the meantime got the letter telling me proceedings have commenced. The whole things contradicts itself. I don't think I have a choice but to go to court because all the information is incorrect and contradictory so the only way I feel we are going to be able to show the truth it at court. Such a rubbish system. Thanks again for taking the time to reply
I'd doubt that in court is the easiest place to get to the bottom of it. Magistrates' Courts are often like a conveyor belt - and they'll no more want to look at stuff not strictly to do with the specific charge than the train company will. If the idea is to avoid a finding of guilt by the court, you need to deal with
just the key thing about the charge being clearly untrue - son at home and so on. And if you stick to that, you might as well do it with the train company in the first place to save the potential stress, cost, and other risk of going to court.
You say you "have decided I am going to send the whole lot to" various people. Given that most of them won't look at anything much beyond what they
need to to deal with something, that route seems destined to leave you with a court case that could probably have been avoided if you'd dealt clearly with the one key issue in the first place, as recommended by others above
Talking about what could have happened on a different day might lead them to think that the offence they allege
did happen, but that they simply made a clerical error with entering the date and so on. A court could then allow the charge to be amended.
But it might be too late now...