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Hello, Yesterday I Got a Witness statement Report From GTR and they said in 14 days you will get a letter from GTR, i was trying to buy short distance tickets from 2 months so the inspector took all my details even took pictures of my trainline ticket history, i have seen so many things online and few of them have written that i can go to jail if they find me guilty, i am stressed from last night, could anyone please help me what i can do!
Hello, Yesterday I Got a Witness statement Report From GTR and they said in 14 days you will get a letter from GTR, i was trying to buy short distance tickets from 2 months so the inspector took all my details even took pictures of my trainline ticket history, i have seen so many things online and few of them have written that i can go to jail if they find me guilty, i am stressed from last night, could anyone please help me what i can do!
You won't go to prison. If they take you to court and you're found guilty, the sentence will be a fine. However, if you come here for advice once you've received your letter, you'll almost certainly be able to settle with them out of court. It's unlikely the letter will arrive in 14 days, as it's usually much longer, but that gives you some time to save for out of court settlement.
You won't go to prison. If they take you to court and you're found guilty, the sentence will be a fine. However, if you come here for advice once you've received your letter, you'll almost certainly be able to settle with them out of court. It's unlikely the letter will arrive in 14 days, as it's usually much longer, but that gives you some time to save for out of court settlement.
So there are chances where i can settle this out of the court.?and also i need to accept my mistake right? Whag is the actual meaning of pleading Guilty. I know i have done the mistake bug i dont understand what are the consequences.
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So there are chances where i can settle this out of the court.?and also i need to accept my mistake right? Whag is the actual meaning of pleading Guilty. I know i have done the mistake bug i dont understand what are the consequences.
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Once i get the letter can i share the letter here and if someone can help me to reply for that
Yes, you'll almost certainly be able to settle with them out of court if (a) you take the advice from people here once you hear from GTR, and (b) you are able to pay the amount they will request. If you tell people here what journey you made and how many times you made it, they'll be able to estimate the maximum amount GTR might request from you.
Pleading guilty or not guilty will only need to happen if it goes to court. Like I said above, it almost certainly won't come this.
so i did this for 5 days in April this month and 2 times in jan, in this month what i did was I was travelling from luton to farringdon and frok farringdon to slough, at 6 30 am in peak time, so to avoid to much fare i use to take Luton to ltn airport parkway peak hour return ticket just to enter from luton and Luton to farringdon return super off peak ticket to come back in the evening but yesterday i tried to save more and i just took ltn and ltn airport return and came from farringdon in evening and they caught me and took all my history from trainline app from jan to april but this thing i have done only 7 times but i always had a superoff peak return ticket , just yesterday i tried using my brain more and i got stuck.
You say you had Super Off Peak returns to ‘cover’ your journey from Luton Airport Parkway to Farringdon. They were of course NOT valid at the time you were travelling. But you don’t say how you paid for the Farringdon to Slough part of your journey. Did you use Oyster or Contactless?
Others may know better than I, but I expect they will be looking for you to pay the full Anytime Single price for both the Luton to Slough and Slough to Luton journeys, plus the costs of their investigation, if you co-operate fully with GTR. No credit / rebate will be given for the invalid tickets you purchased.
GTR almost always settle these sort of cases out of court, as long as you co-operate with them and haven't come to their attention before.
They will write to you in the next few weeks asking ffor your version of events before they decide how to proceed. When the letter arrives post a redacted copy of it in this thread along with your draft reply and we can assist with proof reading it for you.
Expect to have to pay the cost of all the fares avoided at the full Anytime rate, with no credit given for the invalid tickets purchased. In addition they will charge you an admin fee, typically £150. Paying a settlement might feel like paying a fine but technically it isn't - only a court can impose a fine as a punishment upon conviction.
You say you had Super Off Peak returns to ‘cover’ your journey from Luton Airport Parkway to Farringdon. They were of course NOT valid at the time you were travelling. But you don’t say how you paid for the Farringdon to Slough part of your journey. Did you use Oyster or Contactless?
Others may know better than I, but I expect they will be looking for you to pay the full Anytime Single price for both the Luton to Slough and Slough to Luton journeys, plus the costs of their investigation, if you co-operate fully with GTR. No credit / rebate will be given for the invalid tickets you purchased.
From farringdon to slough i paid contacless which i paid like full ticket price everytime, infact i had a railcard and i didnt knew i can use railcard there and i paid like full amount £24, the problem happened only from luton to farringdon, fine is ok i am just worried about court and hearings, because i really dont want to get into this matter.?
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GTR almost always settle these sort of cases out of court, as long as you co-operate with them and haven't come to their attention before.
They will write to you in the next few weeks asking ffor your version of events before they decide how to proceed. When the letter arrives post a redacted copy of it in this thread along with your draft reply and we can assist with proof reading it for you.
Expect to have to pay the cost of all the fares avoided at the full Anytime rate, with no credit given for the invalid tickets purchased. In addition they will charge you an admin fee, typically £150. Paying a settlement might feel like paying a fine but technically it isn't - only a court can impose a fine as a punishment upon conviction.
Once i recieve the letter i will post it in the thread, they said 2 weeks, infact if i dont recieve the letter in 2 weeks, do i email them or how should i inform that i didnt recieve any letter yet.!
Once i recieve the letter i will post it in the thread, they said 2 weeks, infact if i dont recieve the letter in 2 weeks, do i email them or how should i inform that i didnt recieve any letter yet.!
Two weeks is the minimum - provided they have your correct address and you can access your mail there is nothing more you can do until the letter arrives (apart from putting money aside to cover the settlement).
As has been said, GTR are extremely reluctant to take people to court
You need to clarify, I think, where you were stopped by GTR. Was is at Farringdon? Or on the train to Farringdon, somewhere between Luton and Farringdon?
Hi all its been two weeks today and i didn't receive a letter from them and i have moved to the new place, i don't know how to contact them or write an email or should i post a letter to them regarding my address change and ask for the update or where can i get contact details to contact them directly
Hi all its been two weeks today and i didn't receive a letter from them and i have moved to the new place, i don't know how to contact them or write an email or should i post a letter to them regarding my address change and ask for the update or where can i get contact details to contact them directly
You probably should set up a Royal Mail redirect if you have moved address (see Royal Mail website) as it's vital you do not miss any correspondence about something like this.
Do you have a case ref number or anything like that from GTR from when you were stopped as in on that witness statement? If you have that you could try e-mailing or posting a letter to the GTR prosecutions department with your change of address details (limit what you say to just the change of address details and your name and date of birth). This needs to go to their prosecutions team NOT customer services.
Say no more than eg 'I was given a witness statement [insert ref number] on xx date at yy place (copy attached) and I am writing to advise you that as of xx date I have changed my address from AA to BB.
Please address any communications for me to my new address'
Their address is will be somewhere on this forum if you need it. Prosecutions Department, Govia Thameslink Railway, Eastside Offices, Kings Cross Railway Station, London N1C 4AX.
They do have an e-mail address and one of the few things they accept by e-mail is change of address details IIRC.
The 14 days quoted on that witness statement will be very optimistic - you can see other old threads for the timeline that is more typical - it might be more like 4 to 8 weeks before they write to you.
Ok i will post a letter to them regarding my address change, so there is chances that they can take more then 2 weeks to send me the post.? Because i moved last week and i aksed on the reception for the letter they didng find any or they dont know if they return to sender, its better i will send them a letter.! And should i ask for the update aswell or just an address change.?
Yes, it could potentially take up to 6 months but typically I suspect 4 to 8 weeks. As I say look at other cases and your can see the timeline from when a person says they have been stopped and questioned to the point they tell us they have received a letter about it
here is an example from last year that I noted:
- the person (OP) was stopped on or around 1 Nov 2024
- The OP got the letter from GTR / Thameslink on 21 Jan 2025 (so a lot longer than after 14 days!)
- The OP replied to that letter around 24 Jan 2025
- The OP was offered an Out of Court settlement and paid it on 12 March
Whole process took just over 4 months which included the Christmas holiday period.
Because i moved last week and i aksed on the reception for the letter they didng find any or they dont know if they return to sender, its better i will send them a letter.
That is why a Royal Mail postal redirect is a good idea. It helps remove the random things that people might do if post is actually delivered to your old address and the person now receiving it or the reception person could do any number of things including just throwing it in the rubbish, returning it to sender or putting it in a pile of unopened post in the hope that it will get attended to by magic .
Just stick to telling them of your new address in my view. That's because until they write to you you do not know what they are going to ask or say then intend to do. It's not in your interest to write anything else and pre-empt that at this stage in my opinion.
Here is an e-mail address for them that might be of help to you to inform them of your new postal address
Hello its been now more then 2 months i didnt recieve any letters or maybe if i recieve i am no longer on that address, also i have emailed them for the change of the address once in april 22 and didnt heard from them anything, now again 2 weeks before i moved in to the new place should i inform them again or should i wait for the response, i have already provided them my contact number and email address, i havent heard anything yet, i have no idea if they sent me any letter or they have sent my case to court, what should i do please help
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Hello its been now more then 2 months i didnt recieve any letters or maybe if i recieve i am no longer on that address, also i have emailed them for the change of the address once in april 22 and didnt heard from them anything, now again 2 weeks before i moved in to the new place should i inform them again or should i wait for the response, i have already provided them my contact number and email address, i havent heard anything yet, i have no idea if they sent me any letter or they have sent my case to court, what should i do please help
Also i just checked i emailed them on wrong email address, now i got the correct email address and i have explained them the whole situation, do you think in this mean time they would have escalated the case to the court
Hello, I got this letter i have no idea what should i reply to them could anyone please help me what to do in this case.!
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Dear Sir/Madam,
I am writing in response to your letter concerning the incident that took place on 09 April 2025 near Luton station, involving a member of your Revenue Protection Team.
I would like to sincerely apologise for the situation and provide some context from my side. On that day, I was travelling from Slough to Luton. I tapped in with my contactless card at Slough and tapped out at Farringdon station, genuinely believing that this covered my journey. I then boarded a Thameslink service from Farringdon to Luton, under the impression that the fare would automatically be deducted from my account as part of the overall journey.
I now realise that this was a misunderstanding on my part — I mistakenly assumed that the tap-out at Farringdon would also count as the start of the next leg of my journey. To complicate things further, I also purchased a ticket from Luton Airport Parkway to Luton via Trainline, thinking this would help cover the journey as I didn’t alight at the airport station due to being delayed and in a rush.
Please understand, it was never my intention to evade a fare. This was an honest mistake, and I fully accept responsibility for not ensuring I had the correct ticket for the final leg of the journey. I have always paid my fares properly and hold a valid Railcard, which I regularly use when purchasing tickets. This is the first time something like this has happened, and I assure you it will be the last.
I respectfully request that you consider allowing me to settle this matter out of court. I am more than willing to pay any administrative costs or outstanding fare to resolve this situation and avoid further legal proceedings.
Thank you for taking the time to consider my explanation. I hope you will view my case with understanding and allow me the opportunity to make amends.
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Should i reply with this or could any one can do proof reading or just help me draft the reply, it would be great help
For one thing, the fourth paragraph is a complete lie, as it contradicts what you told us in your first post.
Indeed, much of the whole letter is a lie, as it is all based on you not understanding the contactless system, whereas you told us up front you were deliberately short faring.
We advise being totally honest in your response, so it really needs to be rewritten.
But technically they are asking me for that particular day right.? So i should exolain them for that day or i should tell them for the whole week story?
The pros here will know better than me, but your problem could be that they've had time to look at your journey history and may know more than you think. Even if you tell them about that particular week, there are other instances of fare evasion, aren't there?
As John R says, you need to be completely honest with them or they could decide to go straight to court.
But technically they are asking me for that particular day right.? So i should exolain them for that day or i should tell them for the whole week story?
You should concentrate on that particular day, but it still makes whatever you said a lie.
These people weren't born yesterday, they know what you're up to - same as thousands of other people every year - which is why you were reported for prosecution and not penalty fared.
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.
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