My flatmate used my annual travelcard (paper ticket) on the
tube recently and got inspected by the mob that board the
tubes. As he didn't have a photocard & they decided it
wasn't his ticket - my ticket was confiscated and he is waiting
to hear about a fine for fraudulent use! They said they'd
send my ticket back to Southern Trains (the issuers) and I'd
have to contact them about getting it back!

Your flatmate appears to have committed fare evasion, contrary to the
Regulation of Railways Act 1889 s.5(3)(a). If you gave him the pass or
gave him permission to use it you will have breached Railway Byelaws
21(2) (transferring a ticket with intent that someone else use it) and
22(2) (transferring a ticket with intent that someone else avoid
payment). Your flatmate has also breached Byelaw 21(3), but it would be
unusual to proceed against him for this.

The offence your friend has committed is usually dealt with at
magistrates' court, and can lead to a fine of up to £2500 and/or three
months in prison. It is a recordable offence, so if convicted your
friend can be required by the police to attend a police station to have
his fingerprints and DNA taken - this will be entered on the national
DNA database and kept for future reference.

If the case is going to magistrates' court then the pass will be an
exhibit, and so cannot be returned to you until the case is over. Since
the pass is the property of the railway, they may well decide to
withdraw it anyway.

Unless your flatmate has dropped you in it or you have admitted
something, it would be unlikely that you would be prosecuted, but they
might try and obviously I don't know the details of the case so don't
bet on it. If you a prosecuted, expect a fine of anything up to £1000
at magistrates court.

You should really think yourself lucky. If your flatmate had been
stopped by the police in possession of something worth several hundred
pounds that they suspected belonged to someone else, it is quite likely
that he would have been arrested for the theft of the pass. Assuming
that he intended to give the pass back to you before it expired then he
would probably not be prosecuted, but he would have been arrested,
taken to a police station, interviewed and have his
DNA/fingerprints/photograph taken and retained. This is a very common
job for the British Transport Police.

Not getting prosecuted for this type of offence is really easy -- buy a
valid ticket for the whole of your journey on the railway and comply
with the terms and conditions set out in the byelaws. When they say
tickets are not transferable they really mean it!


Pete

wrote in message
ups.com...


Not getting prosecuted for this type of offence is really easy -- buy a
valid ticket for the whole of your journey on the railway and comply
with the terms and conditions set out in the byelaws. When they say
tickets are not transferable they really mean it!

How does buying a ticket stop the OP being prosecuted because
his friend 'borrowed' his pass.

No-one here thinks that the friend deserves anything less
than he gets. It's the, potentially, entirely innocent ST holder
we are helping

tim

tim (back at home) wrote:
wrote in message
ups.com...


Not getting prosecuted for this type of offence is really easy -- buy a
valid ticket for the whole of your journey on the railway and comply
with the terms and conditions set out in the byelaws. When they say
tickets are not transferable they really mean it!

How does buying a ticket stop the OP being prosecuted because
his friend 'borrowed' his pass.

No-one here thinks that the friend deserves anything less
than he gets. It's the, potentially, entirely innocent ST holder
we are helping



Either the flatmate stole something worth £3500, in which case the OP
has to make a complaint to the police, or else the OP was complicit in
a fraud, in which case an unrecorded "fine" of £3500 is probably a lot
better than a similar fine plus criminal record.

He hasn't bothered to confirm this, so I assume the latter. Railway
companies give enough sh*t to people trying to use tickets honestly,
without people crying wolf like this.

Why should a ticket which has already been used fraudulently be
returned for further use?

MIG wrote:

Either the flatmate stole something worth £3500, in which case the OP
has to make a complaint to the police, or else the OP was complicit in
a fraud, in which case an unrecorded "fine" of £3500 is probably a lot
better than a similar fine plus criminal record.

He hasn't bothered to confirm this, so I assume the latter. Railway
companies give enough sh*t to people trying to use tickets honestly,
without people crying wolf like this.

Why should a ticket which has already been used fraudulently be
returned for further use?

I am not a lawyer.

I'm not sure the situation is as black-and-white as you suggest.

I thought that stealing required 'intent to permanently deprive', so
for the flatmate to be convicted of stealing, the prosecution would
have to show that intent. If the OP does not wish to press charges,
this may be difficult.

The flatmate has apparently (we do not know all the facts of the case)
defrauded the railway of the cost of a ticket for the journey he made.

Hypothetically, if the flatmate knew the OP were not going to use the
season ticket that day, he could possibly have borrowed it without the
OP's knowledge, with the intention of replacing it before the OP
noticed its absence. I'm not sure a charge of stealing could be made
to stick in that case.

Regards,

Sid

wrote:
MIG wrote:

Either the flatmate stole something worth £3500, in which case the OP
has to make a complaint to the police, or else the OP was complicit in
a fraud, in which case an unrecorded "fine" of £3500 is probably a lot
better than a similar fine plus criminal record.

He hasn't bothered to confirm this, so I assume the latter. Railway
companies give enough sh*t to people trying to use tickets honestly,
without people crying wolf like this.

Why should a ticket which has already been used fraudulently be
returned for further use?

I am not a lawyer.

I'm not sure the situation is as black-and-white as you suggest.

I thought that stealing required 'intent to permanently deprive', so
for the flatmate to be convicted of stealing, the prosecution would
have to show that intent. If the OP does not wish to press charges,
this may be difficult.


Hmm, so everyone just says "I intend to give it back" when they get
caught?


The flatmate has apparently (we do not know all the facts of the case)
defrauded the railway of the cost of a ticket for the journey he made.

Hypothetically, if the flatmate knew the OP were not going to use the
season ticket that day, he could possibly have borrowed it without the
OP's knowledge, with the intention of replacing it before the OP
noticed its absence. I'm not sure a charge of stealing could be made
to stick in that case.


But I am assuming, since the OP has never said otherwise, that he was
complicit in the flatmate's fraudulent use of the ticket. I don't
really think it's worth going into the more far-fetched scenarios.

"MIG" wrote in message
oups.com...

Hypothetically, if the flatmate knew the OP were not going to use the
season ticket that day, he could possibly have borrowed it without the
OP's knowledge, with the intention of replacing it before the OP
noticed its absence. I'm not sure a charge of stealing could be made
to stick in that case.


But I am assuming, since the OP has never said otherwise, that he was
complicit in the flatmate's fraudulent use of the ticket.


I assumed the exact opposite, because he didn't say otherwise.

ISTM that assuming a poster acted legally is a more
reasonable interpretation of no info than assuming he
acted illegally.
Someone who has acted legally is not always going to
know that this info is required, but a person who has
acted illegally IS going to know that this info is important
(but they may still leave it out)

BICBW

tim

tim (back at home) wrote:
"MIG" wrote in message
oups.com...

Hypothetically, if the flatmate knew the OP were not going to use the
season ticket that day, he could possibly have borrowed it without the
OP's knowledge, with the intention of replacing it before the OP
noticed its absence. I'm not sure a charge of stealing could be made
to stick in that case.


But I am assuming, since the OP has never said otherwise, that he was
complicit in the flatmate's fraudulent use of the ticket.


I assumed the exact opposite, because he didn't say otherwise.

ISTM that assuming a poster acted legally is a more
reasonable interpretation of no info than assuming he
acted illegally.
Someone who has acted legally is not always going to
know that this info is required, but a person who has
acted illegally IS going to know that this info is important
(but they may still leave it out)



Then why did he say

"My question is I doubt I can do anything about the imminent fines for
both of us - but does anyone have a clue how much we'll get fined?"?

And your assumption would seem to be that the flatmate, who has had no
opportunity, unlike the OP, to say otherwise, was guilty of something
far worse than he was likely to have been.