Dodging Fare Evasion - A Guide

Dodging Fare Evasion – A guide.

This post only relates to Fare Evasion on Buses that are operated by TFL.
It does not deal with Fare Evasion on the Tube, though I suppose you can use similar arguments, but you should be careful to make that distinction for yourselves.

Quite a few of you readers have been emailing me and asking me how I got out of being prosecuted by TFL for fare evasion. Some of you have been nice, and others have just taken my information and run, without a thank you (I hope you get done propa). Though I find it incredibly boring to give people the same advice all the time, and I’m pretty sure I keep missing stuff out, so here’s a guide if you help you getting out of being prosecuted via settling out of court.

Disclaimer: I accept no responsibility for any reliance that you make on this information, it should not be considered as independent legal advice, if you do intend to rely on this information by reading this you promise not to be a dumb ass, not to copy and paste points that I put across, you are free to distribute this information as you wish as long as I am credited.

Update 03 April 2009 - If you get a court summons just ring them up and ask to settle out of court. They will normally let you and you will have to pay around £102.


PLEASE READ THE POST IN FULL AND THE COMMENTS BEFORE EMAILING ME.

Update February 5th 2009 - there is another fanastic website that deals with this, I have yet to verify the information on it, but I consider that the information is still reliable. In addition to reading this guide you should also read the information on the link below.

I have just recently become aware as of February 6th 2009 of this wonderful website
http://busrights.blogspot.com/

1. You’ve been caught
So you have been caught, either it was a mistake or you were deliberating doing it, it really makes no difference. Make sure that you check whatever you sign at the time, this will be used in evidence against you, so make sure that you agree with what TFL inspector, or if you did not know then you may say that you were under duress to sign it.

If the ticket inspector has taken down your details it will be all put in a computer, and I gather that the decision to prosecute is made by the prosecution managers. If you have given a real name and address you are likely to receive a letter, saying that you were caught at X time and X date, and do you have anything to say about the matter.

You should immediately reply, with a grovelling letter of apology, it will also be important to make sure that any correspondence with TFL is printed off or photocopied, and kept in a safe place or folder, you will need this if you need to go to court.

2. The Court Summons
Think that they have forgotten about it, haven’t heard about them in a couple of months? TFL are extremely busy prosecuting people, probably with the amount of people that don’t pay on the buses. As fare evasion is a summary offence a court summons can arrive any time (so I’m told) within 6 months of when the offence was committed. Any longer and I assume you can have the case chucked out of you as the time limit for bring forth proceedings has elapsed, or you could be unlucky enough to have the court summons arrive 4 days before the elapsed period.

2(a) Read

Though you will probably be in shock and perhaps thinking that your legal career is over it is important to read all the documents that you have in front of you, check all the statements provided by inspectors, look to see if they are signed or not, an unsigned statement may not be valid, after all how do we know that someone else has not made this information up? Look also at the statements look for discrepancies, the TFL inspector may have surmised what you have said, or might not have written down what you said at all. Note this down for later.

Also have a look at the Revenue Enforcement and Prosecutions Policy and highlight any sections that you feel are applicable to your case.


2(b) Do I have to respond immediately?http://www.blogger.com/img/gl.bold.gif
My advice is no, do not respond immediately to the court summons as you will be trying to settle out of court. I did not fill out the back of the form or send anything off. If you have already put in your plea it doesn’t matter you can change it.

If you have received a court summons ring up the TFL number provided on the summons and ask for whoever is in charge of your case and ask for their email, this will speed up communication time, as you will not have to put valuable letters within the remit of Royal Mail.

3. Drafting a response to the court summons

(a) Tone and Format
Assuming now that you want to settle out of court, have read through all the information on the court summons, have highlighted any discrepancies in the evidence against you, and checked that the statements have been signed so you can assure for their validity you can now start with your draft letter/email in the hope that you can settle this out of court.

You will need to sound (a) apologetic, do not rant, keep it simple and precise, and (b) it needs to be written in a formal manner, even if its in an email I recon it should look like this found HERE (click link) . Do not use the same adjectives over again, have an expansive vocabulary but do not get flowery.

Here is where you need to develop your written advocacy!! Whilst also being formal, apologetic all that jazz, you need to be persuasive, be persuasive in a suggestive way for example “It could be open to suggest that…” etc.

(B) What to include.
Hopefully if you have read all the above points you will know what to include.
You may want to set it out like this (a) Apology (b) Revenue and Policy Guidelines that support you case (C) The Pace argument (explained later) (D) if the statements are signed or not.

(C) The Pace Argument

The pace argument relates to the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984. (You may wish to google this) now TFL inspectors are bound by this act and therefore must perform their duties in accordance with it. Depending on your circumstances you may not be even to use this argument, this must be considered very carefully, because if you use it and its not applicable to you then you will look like a dumbass. I suggest you do your own research on Pace.
Now what can you use PACE for. Basically PACE stipulates that any conversation or questions put to a suspect that are likely to produce an allged confession, must only be after you have been cautioned. A police caution in this circumstance being that which you may be familiar with on the bill "You do not have to say anything. But it may harm your defence if you do not mention when questioned something which you later rely on in court. Anything you do say may be given in evidence." Also see this site HERE for more information.

So if you have been questioned and you have said anything that may be prejudical to your case you could suggest to TFL that it would be inadmissible in a court of law.
If it went to court, you can make an application under s.76 and s.78 of PACE 1984 to exclude such evidence being admitted.

4. The Waiting Game

So hopefully you will nervously await a reply from TFL as they decide your fate! This process can take up to a week. They will either (a) inform you that they are proceeding with the prosecution or (b) saying that they will drop it, if you pay prosecution costs and the fare evaded, an amount which could be between £100-£200. Once you have paid they will send you a confirmation that they have dropped the case and that you do not need to attend the court date.

5. What happens if they don’t drop the prosecution.

Now I never got this far, however I would try and keep communications open as possible with TFL, keep asking them to settle out of court.

If not you can ask to meet with the prosecutor and suggest that they charge you with a caution, if not then you could ask the magistrate to impose an absolute discharge (which is not a criminal conviction) given the prosecution’s hard stance. You could also show how eager you were to co-operate with TFL, and make sure that you have a copy of all the correspondence between yourself and TFL.

5(A) Should I get representation?

Not if you can settle it out of court, solicitors will charge £100 for an interview as fare evasion does not give rise to legal aid! There may however be people who will represent you bro pono.

Contact details are below.

Community Legal Services Direct
0845 345 4345


The Law Society on 020 7242 1222.

Bar Pro Bono Unit
0207 6119500.


6. How will this effect my future career in Law Etc

I have been told that this will probably not effect being called to the Bar. You MUST if asked declare any convictions declare them to your professional regulatory body, either to the Bar or Law Society. If you do not have a conviction then you do not need to mention it ;)

I think that they ask for any previous convictions, not withstanding whether or not they have been spent, so you must declare them. If you do not declare your conviction you risk the chance of being found out later and disbarred, or whatever the equivalent for a solicitor is.

There are two different views on whether or not this will effect your chances of pupillage/jobs, either (a) everyone has done it in London including Barrister’s themselves so it’s not very serious or (b) it’s an offence of dishonesty, “ I wouldn’t want to work with a thief” a mumbling twat would mutter, and with competition for these jobs being so high, its another reason to reject your application.

Now hopefully this has provided you with the answers that you want. If you still have questions you can contact me at lost London law student at googlemail dot com.

Good Luck!!