Notice Of Intention To Prosecute from Thameslink

ripofflondon

Hi all

Hope this is in the correct part of the forum - if there is a better place, please say. 

On 5 Nov I received the above-mentioned letter, dated 4 Nov, following my being stopped at Kings Cross on the morning of 2 Sep without a ticket. It informed me of their intention to take the matter to a Magistrates' Court and says for me to state what happened from my point of view within 14 days. 

I hadn't intended to travel to or via Kings Cross but the train had terminated at Kings Cross when I had expected it to pass via Kings Cross Thameslink and then onto Farringdon where I had intended to change to the Elizabeth.Line.   

I bought a return ticket for the entire journey later that morning but after all this time had assumed I was never going to hear back and don't think I have the ticket any more.  

So, as you can imagine, I was a bit surprised to get this letter after more than 2 months - certainly for a speeding or other motoring ticket a NIP must be sent out within 14 days.  Plus this letter misspells my surname (with an 's' that it shouldn't contain) and puts my flat number as 54a which is the upstairs flat when in fact I live at 54 the downstairs property.  

Any thoughts on what I should do / say gratefully appreciated.  

Many thanks

Mark

daveyjp

What ticket did you have before you boarded the train?

p00hsticks

I can't see 'the above letter' but as far as I'm aware (and happy to be corrected if I'm wrong) unlike private parking tickets, public transport fines can potentially end up with you getting a criminal record, so whatever you do decide to do, don't just ignore it. 

saajan_12

What happened when you showed your original ticket for the intended journey?
If the intended, ticketed journey was passing through Kings Cross then you're usually allowed to step off the train - why was there an issue in the first place?

elsien

What is the ticket you bought later that morning before or after you got stopped for not having a ticket?

New_in_the_fens

Kings Cross station and St Pancras International (the station on Thameslink you go through to get to Farringdon) are two completely different stations. 

msa1204

The Railway have 6 months to bring an prosecution , you may be better to post on https://www.railforums.co.uk/

t0rt0ise

So did you have a ticket to Farringdon instead? In which case explain that. But it sounds like you had no ticket at all in which case plead guilty.

ripofflondon

What actually happened was I had got to the station (Finsbury Park) and could see that what I thought was a Thameslink train was about a minute and a half away from leaving. The next one was a good 20-25 mins later and I had to get to Paddington for another mainline train to Exeter.  The barriers were open and I ran for it without touching in / getting a ticket, my intention being to buy my ticket once at Paddington - I put my hands up to being flustered because I was running late.  I got on the train JUST before the doors closed and only then realised it was going to stop at Kings Cross not St Pancras International.  There was nothing I could do and so once it reached Kings Cross it stopped at the street level bit (also a terminus) rather than St Pancras International.  I thought that if I said to the person at the barrier that I had gotten the wrong train as I had been in a hurry and that I would buy a ticket there and then, I could get through and then make my way to the St Pancras entrance for the Thameslink to travel on to Farringdon.  Wrong - he still took my details. By this point I had managed to do a bit of googling (he had kept me waiting a good 10 mins and it was obvious I wasn't going to get the intended train out of Paddington) and I had discovered that if I got back on the same train as I had arrived on then this train would head north from Kings Cross, not via Finsbury Park but eventually it would intersect with Thameslink trains that DID head south through St Pancras International - so that is what I did and eventually got to Paddington via Farringdon. 

Once at Paddington about 55 mins later I bought an anytime Finsbury Park-Paddington ticket for that day and this remained unused in my wallet until fairly recently by which time I had assumed that if I was going to hear from them I'd have done so by now.  

t0rt0ise

Everyone should know by now that you shouldn't travel without a ticket. The days of buying afterwards or on the train have generally long gone. Take it as a learning experience.