Fare evasion fine and court costs of over £1200

[puppetmaster86]

Hello there,

 

New round here. I hope this is in the right place and thank you in advance for your advice/feedback.

 

A summary of the predicament I am in.

 

Last October I travelled from Leicester to Manchester with an advanced ticket

I had purchased with a young persons railcard.

 

I was stopped by the conductor on the train and

 

on showing my rail card I realised I only had the one half of the two bits that I needed for it to be valid.

(For those that aren't familiar with railcards,

in previous years all the information was on one card, much like a membership card or a driving license.

Now they give it to you in two parts, one with the photo ID and the other with the expiry date)

 

I had used my bit part railcard for many weeks previously and was never pulled up on it

by ticket conductors on many of the journeys I had undertaken.

in fact I was rarely asked to produce it at all, but I suppose that isn't the point.

 

I was issued with an on the spot fine which I was unable to pay for not producing the relevant ID

opted for the fine in which I was given 28 days to pay.

 

I also voluntarily asked for one on the journey back as I still was in a position

where I couldn't afford to pay for a full ticket and had no way of getting back.

 

The conductor was very accomodating and informed me that if I found the missing part of my railcard,

it might be worth sending it in and the fines would be cancelled. Unfortunately I never found it.

 

At this point, and I know this is probably the part where I'm guilty judge, jury and executioner,

I gave my old address as my correspondence.

 

Now this wasn't a complete deliberate attempt to evade the fare as I was currently

only living in Leicester part time and the only options I had available were to give my home address

(which is some 80 miles away, and in all likeliness I wouldn't have travelled home within that 28 days)

or my girlfriends parents which was where I was residing when I was in Leicester.

 

The address I'd given was my previous term address which I had moved out of in the summer.

I was still in contact with the landlord and had expected that I would be notified if any post came

for me so I could pick it up.

 

I heard nothing between October 30th (the original date of the fine) until the day before I went on holiday

couple of weeks ago - June 25th - when a letter arrived at my mothers residence in Shrewsbury.

 

In which time I'd missed a court case in Stockport, which was dated for May 7th

and a judgement was passed in my absence.

 

I have now been given a fine of £1200 and will have a criminal conviction.

 

When I rang up Manchester and Stockport court in total dismay as to what I was being summoned for,

they suggested I make a statutory declaration.

 

I was given no more information, no dates or any specifics as to what I was being charged for.

 

I was not told to seek any legal representation and when I attended the statutory declaration,

which I assumed to be a mere formality of signing forms or something similar (my ignorance perhaps)

I was asked to swear under oath and give a fairly accurate account of what happened.

 

After a very awkward and intense 15 mins or so the judging panel decided not to proceed

with the declaration and that the fine/conviction stood.

 

Is this normal procedure in this circumstances?

 

I'm still shocked as to how little information was made available to me.

 

Of course I certainly didn't go out of my way to receive the fine and any subsequent letters

but neither did I specifically go out of my way to avoid them.

 

After all eight months had passed and I had assumed (hoped) that the matter had gone away.

 

Again, my ignorance perhaps.

 

Where do I stand with regards to appealing this decision?

 

I am a student having only very recently finished my studies

and with aspirations to work abroad or within a government office,

something that would be destroyed if this conviction stands.

 

I have never (knowingly) committed a crime of my life and after my mother was recently diagnosed

with a third recurrence of lung cancer

 

I am now the sole provider in my house and simply could not afford to pay a fine.

(Not particularly wanting to go down the road of X-Factor style sob-stories

but this perhaps couldn't have landed at my feet at a worse time).

 

I've also not told a single person about this, mainly not to worry my mother,

and following from today's experience in court am pretty shaken

and worried at what might happen.

 

Any information would be a godsend.

 

I'm not looking for lectures,

I know I've not covered myself in glory here but a £1200 fine

and a criminal record for what was more than likely a total of £40 difference in ticket prices

is grossly unfair in my opinion.

 

I have written a grovelling letter to the chief exec of the rail company but I'm not holding my breath!

[dx100uk]

can you not investigate proving by some method

that you were issued with the missing part of the two card system?

 

might be worth it.

 

dx

[puppetmaster86]

The problem is there is no database for young person railcards if purchased at a train station so I can't prove it was in date. Then again they can't prove it wasn't but I suppose that's not the point.

[Ganymede]

I think a Mod needs to move your thread to here...

 

http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/forumdisplay.php?161-Public-transport-%28Trains-tubes-and-buses%29

[dx100uk]

yes didn't see it was in general

 

 

dx

[firstclassx]

Top and bottom of it is this:

 

1) You didn't have all relevant parts of the railcard with you (I'd bet my house that it was the "date" part conveniently missing)

2) As a result of 1), you didn't have a valid ticket.

3) You gave an incorrect address knowing full well that it was a previous address and one that you no longer resided at;

4) You then expect a court to be sympathetic to you, because you deliberately tried to avoid being traced?

 

Sounds to be as you got issued with an Unpaid Fare Notice (UFN) or Penalty Fare Notice (PFN) on your outward journey, which has company details on it, which you decided not to pay or appeal.

On the return journey, again, you simply boarded a train, and got caught - and again ended up with a UFN or PFN, which you also failed to pay or appeal.

For both of these UFN/PFN documents you provided a false address, decided not to pay or appeal, and hoped the matter would not find it's way back to you because you'd given a dodgy address!!

 

My advice to you is that you need to accept some responsibility for your actions, and that you did intentionally try to avoid this matter being traced back to you.

 

Work out a payment plan with the court and accept you've messed up.

 

If you want to start going down the road of legal appeals, bear in mind that the rail company could very easily lay some new (serious) charges against you, based on your signed and sworn stat dec:

 

©Having failed to pay his fare, gives in reply to a request by an officer of a railway company a false name or address,he shall be liable on summary conviction to a fine

 

Providing an address that you no longer live at, and no longer will ever live back at in the future is quite clearly not your actual address.

 

Whilst you may/may not have deliberately avoided paying the correct fare, once it was pointed out to you that you had an invalid ticket, you then chose (intentionally) to avoid payment of the correct fare by providing details you believed would not lead to you being dealt with later.

 

If a bench of Magistrate's did actually dismiss your claims, then good, I wholeheartedly agree that you only have yourself to blame for this situation, and you will have to live with those consequences.