Consequences of evading bus/train fares and what to do to get the best outcome if you do get caught
Living costs are going up and you can barely keep up, so you think of ways of hacking the system hoping to get away with not paying Transport for London fares. Some of you will use concessionary cards that do not belong to you for discounted or free travel, some are professional fare evaders who do this on a regular basis and are of the view that the few times they do get caught, paying the fine on those occasions is cheaper than getting travel passes throughout the year, some make genuine mistakes and are caught not paying the fare. Whichever category you fall under, if you have ever gotten caught evading a TFL fare, the following is for you.
The law: TFL is entitled to prosecute for fare evasion under a number of pieces of legislation, the most common being the TFL Railway Byelaws under the Transport Act of 1962 for travelling without a valid ticket.
TFL has new measures in place to reduce fare evasion significantly which has resulted in the highest tube fare prosecution this year since 2019. To be clear, prosecution for fare evasion is a criminal prosecution that can result in a criminal conviction. This means if you are looking to apply for a job role that carries out background checks, your potential employer will see your conviction, or if you are an immigrant or an asylum seeker waiting to hear back from the Home Office on your application, this will impact your application.
Let’s start from the beginning of what this might look like. A TFL officer stops you at the ticketing gate and asks where you are travelling to and then asks to see your ticket. You don’t have one, or you are using someone else’s Oyster card, or your phone died and you couldn’t pay or you pushed through behind a fare paying traveler, whatever the case, cooperate with the officer. What you say to the officer will be written down as part of TFL’s prosecution case against you. So if you are using swear words to the officer, it gets written down for the Magistrate to see who will ultimately decide the fine to be issued to you if it reaches that stage. Cooperate and be nice and it might actually work in your favour.
In certain circumstances, you might get lucky enough to be issued a penalty fare notice on the spot. This is usually a fine of £100 or £50 if paid within 21 days, plus the actual fare being fined for. If you get this option, take it and avoid a criminal conviction, better still, pay within the 21 days to ensure you only pay half the penalty. This might seem like a lot for say a £9 fare, but it is a lot less than the total due by the time a Magistrate issues a court fine, and on top of this, at this stage, there is no criminal conviction.
If your matter does reach the court stage, it is very important to respond to the SJP notice with all the details as this is what will determine the total amount of and method by which to pay the fine and costs. Always respond to the SJP notice providing information about why the fare was not paid, whether you are employed and/or on benefits, what your income is, and what your expenses are. The Magistrate deciding on your case, and guided by the sentencing guidelines , will look at all of these factors when deciding on the appropriate amount of fine to be imposed.
Factors such as aggressive, abusive or disruptive behaviour, and previous convictions will increase culpability likely to be reflected in the fine, and similarly, factors such as expressing remorse and having no previous convictions will reduce seriousness of the offence and will be reflected in the fine.
The penalty: When no plea is submitted, or no response to the SJP provided, the Magistrate will have to decide on the case based on information provided by the TFL alone. When no information on income is provided, an assumption is made about the income to calculate the fine. The assumed income is £440 a week. A band A fine on a £440/week income come to £220 in fine to pay. On top of this, costs of prosecution is sought at the amount of 250. That’s not all. When a case reaches the court stage, a victim surcharge must be paid which goes towards funding victim support services. Victim Surcharge is calculate at 40% of the fine imposed. This comes to a total of £558 to pay in total. In some instances TFL will also ask for the journey fare to be paid in compensation. Once the total amount to pay is calculated, the next thing the Magistrate will consider is how this payment can be made. If information is provided about the defendant being on benefits or being unemployed or other such mitigating factors, the Magistrate will look at the case more leniently in favour of the defendant and give the person the option to pay in monthly installments. Without this information, the standard payment method is to pay within 28 days.
In some cases, the defendant will respond to the SJP notice, pleading guilty and asking for the matter to be settled out of court, not realizing that once an SJP notice has been served, the next stage is the court stage where the matter is decided without going to a full court but by one Magistrates and a Legal Adviser. Once the Magistrate finds the case proven based on documents submitted by TFL, a fine and costs are imposed and this results in a criminal conviction. If the fine imposed cannot be paid, the defendant has a final opportunity to contact the court and explain their circumstances to find a way around this.
In certain circumstances, if the explanation given in mitigation in response to the SJP notice amounts to a good reason for not having a valid ticket, the Magistrate may decide to do away with the matter with a Conditional Discharge where no fine is imposed but costs and victim surcharge can still be imposed. This too is still a criminal conviction. In very rare circumstances, if the reason provided in mitigation should really ought to result in a dismissal, then the Magistrate may decide to dismiss the matter, which means no conviction.
In conclusion, the TFL runs an expensive services which loses out in a lot of revenue when people evade TFL fares resulting in the high amounts of fines and costs imposed; it is in the defendant’s interest to cooperate to avoid a conviction or provide a detailed response to the SJP notice to avoid harsh consequences.
Leave a comment