In message , Dave
writes
So if you had a trolley full of shopping at your local supermarket, but
not every single checkout was in operation - would you leave without
paying whilst taking all the goods and claim it was the supermarket's
fault? Or would that be considered theft?

*If* there was absolutely no opportunity for you to purchase a ticket
at your destination, then (and only then) would I say you had a point.
If you had an opportunity to purchase a ticket at your destination, but
chose not to do so simply because there wasn't someone there to *make*
you buy one - that makes you a thief.

As I stated. Someone in a London Underground uniform announced to the
queue for the ticket office that if anyone wanted to pay at the
destination that they could and then opened the manual gate and let
quite a few people (including me) through.
Not all the ticket machines had queues as the two main ones were out of
order. Not all the ticket offices had queues as only one of them was
actually staffed.
If there had been massive queues for ticket machines and all ticket
offices then sure I would have waited.
The point I was making is that they couldn't handle the number of people
at the single ticket window open because the machines were not working
and they didn't have the other ticket window open. Because of this they
had to let people travel without tickets on the basis they would pay at
their destination. I can assure you without doubt that I wouldn't be the
only one who didn't pay. And Im sure others claimed to have started
their journey in a different Zone to Zone 5 (which Harrow is in)
--
CJG