NORTHERN RAIL - DEBT RECOVERY

[BazzaS]

Clearly you failed the ‘attitude test’ at the barrier, and your posts here aren’t much better.

 

Move for a minute to looking at it from the TOC’s point of view.

Your responsibility was to arrive at the original station in good time to buy a ticket.

If you couldn’t buy a ticket at the station you could have sought out staff on the train.

If you couldn’t find any staff on the train you should have tried to pay for your journey BEFORE going to the gate line : any of those would have shown you were trying to pay your fare.

 

You may have been worried about missing your flight, but then you should have made different arrangements so that you weren’t facing such pressure that it may have looked like you were trying to evade your fare.

 

You MIGHT be able to defend a RRA 1889 prosecution, but if they chose to prosecute you for the Byelaw offence instead : they have a pretty much “slam-dunk” guilty on that (strict liability) offence from what you’ve stated.

 

Don’t forget to be sure to include in your reply that you were bullied, and that there were “their fake police” there, and “they were meeting their quota”, if your aim is to ensure they decide to prosecute you!

 

Alternatively: adjust your view to consider what it looked like to them, that they have no obligation to allow people to travel without paying their fare at the first opportunity, nor to allow people not to pay at first opportunity because they didn’t leave themselves enough time.

 

Then look at how you might persuade them not to prosecute and offer an administrative settlement (which they are under NO OBLIGATION to offer).