Ministers launch review into UK rail fare prosecutions

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Ministers have launched a review into how UK train operators handle suspected fare evasion, following “egregious” examples of passengers facing prosecution for minor ticketing errors.

Transport secretary Louise Haigh on Wednesday said the UK’s rail regulator would review ticketing enforcement across the railways, including when prosecution is appropriate.

The intervention comes amid concerns that some train companies have taken disproportionate action against passengers who have made apparently innocent mistakes, such as travelling with a railcard on services where it is not valid.

“We have seen some egregious examples of fare prosecutions, and whilst fare evasion is totally unacceptable . . . we need to be clear that where people have made genuine mistakes they should not be prosecuted,” Haigh told MPs.

Train companies have a range of options to deal with passengers found travelling without a valid ticket, and a wide degree of latitude over which to use.

These range from issuing £100 on the spot “penalty fares”, to prosecution for fare evasion through a Magistrates Court, which results in a criminal record for the passenger if they lose the case.

“People who have made an innocent mistake should be treated with understanding and not immediately assumed to be guilty,” said Alex Robertson, chief executive of passenger watchdog Transport Focus.

In August, senior district judge Paul Goldspring found that six UK railway operators had unlawfully prosecuted passengers for fare evasion, by wrongly using a contentious “fast track” justice procedure.

Last month, government-owned operator Northern Rail said it would suspend some prosecutions while reviewing its policies towards fare evasion, including when “the rules on ticketing may not be understood by passengers”.

Robertson and Haigh both said the UK’s complex ticketing system — which includes restrictions on when many tickets can be used and on which services — is partly to blame. The government has committed to simplifying the fare system as part of a wider reform of the railway.

Fare evasion remains a major problem for the rail network.

The Rail Delivery Group, which represents train companies and state-owned infrastructure owner Network Rail, has estimated that about £240mn is lost annually through fare evasion on Great Britain’s railways.

“Make no mistake, deliberate fare-dodging has no place on our railways and must be tackled, but innocent people shouldn’t feel like a genuine mistake will land them in court,” Haigh said.

On Wednesday, Haigh told the Transport Select Committee that her plans to renationalise the passenger railway would not be a “silver bullet” to solve the industry’s problems, which include poor performance and high levels of government subsidy.

Legislation to bring rail companies into public ownership is going through parliament, and Haigh said she expected to bring a second bill for wider reforms of the industry by next summer.

“I don’t want anybody to underestimate the scale of the reform challenge . . . [nationalisation] is not a silver bullet. We have to massively reduce and simplify the mass of regulation that has been built up over the last 30 years of privatisation,” she said.