Northern Rail Railway Bylaw Ticket - is it legit?

bazster

Parky10 wrote: »

It's fine, you're right that Railway Bylaw ones are legit and you have to pay them

Depends what you mean by "you have to pay them". The only compulsion to pay comes when you've been convicted in a magistrates' court.

bazster

xHannahx wrote: »

From reading local media court news the train companies are taking a fair few people to court with typical fine of £300-500 and compensation of the cost of the unpaid ticket plus costs.

A bye law offence I believe to be non recordable.

You've a gamble on your hands, pay the fixed penalty cost to make it go away, or go to court and risk multiplying it. Ignore it and they will no question take you to court. Just read local media court reports to see how many they are taking to court

Ticketless travel is a strict liability offence, the only defence is proving you hadn't passed an open ticket office.

Pop on rail forums UK where they have a section dedicated to prosecutions and disputes, I will tell you now they aren't very sympathetic but know their stuff regarding rail prosecutions so will be able to advise best course of action.

What the TOC is doing is illegal, and they have no basis on which to prosecute, even though magistrates fall for it.

The railway byelaws create no offence which could be committed by a vehicle keeper. Byelaw 14.4(i) (insofar as it has any effect at all, which is doubtful) merely creates a civil liability on a vehicle owner. It is not an offence for a vehicle owner to refuse to pay a fine incurred by the driver.

14.4(i) is in any case ultra vires the enabling legislation, Section 219 of the Transport Act 2000, which reads thus:

The Authority may make bye-laws regulating—
(a)the use and working of railway assets,
(b)travel on or by means of railway assets,
(c)the maintenance of order on railway assets, and
(d)the conduct of persons while on railway assets.

There is clearly nothing there conferring the power to make byelaws concerning people who may never have been near a railway asset in their life.

Nonetheless TOC's bring prosecutions without presenting a shred of evidence as to whether their victim personally committed any offence, and magistrates fall for it.

One possible approach if being subjected to their blackmail (although without guarantee of success, since it's all very new) is to pay their ransom in order to head off prosecution and then file a Money Claim Online for the return of your money plus damages citing their misleading and aggressive actions and the Consumer Protection (Amendment) Regulations 2014.

To bring such a claim you must start disputing the payment with them within 90 days of making it. My opinion is that a TOC would probably just pay up (so long as you didn't go overboard on the damages) rather than risk a court driving a coach and horses through their illegal racket. No guarantees though, it's never been tried yet to my knowledge - although someone did once sue a TOC pre the new regs and get their money back in an out-of-court settlement!

bazster

However, in the first instance simply wait for them to write to you. One tactic is to drag the whole thing out so they run out of time to bring a prosecution (they have six months), so do nothing in a hurry.