What Are The Consequences Of Fare Evasion On The London Underground?
A friend of mine was caught using a child travelcard by the British Transport Police at Brixton station today. He is 18 years old so he shouldn’t have been using one. The lady took down a lot of his details, and said that the offence he commited was ‘fare evasion’. She said , something like, he will receive a letter about going to court. What are the possibilities of what will happen in court? Will he receive a fine? Will he go to jail?
1. Transport for London are very hot on fare evasion and will ALWAYS prosecute where there is a case.
2. So a Court appearance is virtually certain.
3. A large fine is the least of the possible penalties. If your friend has any similar pre-existing convictions (and that includes anything to do with dishonesty), then your friend should take a toothbrush with him, because he will go to prison.
4. Your friend will have a criminal record which will prevent him gaining certain types of jobs and which will adversly affect his credit rating. “Fare evasion” is, after all, a polite term for “criminal fraud”!
Prosecutions for Fare Evasion on both London Underground and National Rail are under Section 5 of the Regulation of Railways Act 1889.
Fines are set at a maximum of level 3 on the standard scale (as defined in Section 37 of the Criminal Justice Act 1982, subsequently amended by Section 17 of the Criminal Justice Act 1991), currently £1000, OR Courts may impose a jail term of up to three months. (As amended by Section 84 of the Transport Act 1962.)
And a successful prosecution would result in a criminal record.
Unfortunately for your friend, Fare Evasion on the railways can often lead to a criminal conviction.
‘Evade your fare and you risk a criminal conviction ‘ – TfL …
The rules on how to avoid being a fare evader are simple – on the bus always … Last year London Underground issued more than 30000 penalty fares and a …http://www.tfl.gov.uk/corporate/media/ne…
Good luck!
he will get a fine, and if he doesn’t pay it then they will ‘threaten’ him with court proceedings.
i got a fine for £20 the other week for going to a station that wasn’t printed on my travel card. i thought i could get away with it because there are no barriers there, but the pigs were out in full force. i was so annoyed.
Nice big fine and a criminal record. This means that some lines of work will not be open to him.
He will get a nice big fine.
a Big fine they don’t mess about