A railway line has recovered £12,000 from a fare dodger who offended nearly 750 times. Chiltern Railways, who didn’t name the culprit, said the habitual fare dodger committed 736 offences of ‘fraudulent reclaims of money, knowingly not paying the correct fare and railcard abuse’. The train operator has now recovered £12,000 from the culprit – but they are one of three repeat offenders who have been forced to hand back up to £15,000 each.
Last year Chiltern investigated just over 8,000 cases of potential fraud, and successfully managed to recover more than £1million in lost revenue. That’s on top of money recovered from the 2,156 penalty fares they issued, which made more than £114,000 last year. Rail Delivery Group, an industry body, estimates train operators lose about £240million through fare evasion in Britain each year. Offences include passengers not paying for their full journey, adults buying child tickets, or misusing railcards.
Up to £15,000 each was recovered from three Chiltern passengers who ‘systematically avoided paying the correct rail fare over a substantial period of time’. Tony Baxter, operations director at Chiltern, said: ‘The vast majority of our customers pay for their tickets before they travel but unfortunately there is still a lot of money lost on the railway through fare evasion every year. ‘We are determined to ensure fairness for the paying customer and there is no excuse for fare evasion as it has never been simpler to purchase a ticket.
‘Anyone risking boarding without buying the correct ticket for their journey is at risk of a penalty fare or prosecution.’. Ticket fraud, especially the misuse of railcards, has been in the spotlight in recent months after hundreds of prosecutions were overturned in just three minutes. The prosecutions were wiped out by a magistrate who said the cases should not have been taken to court after prosecutions were brought using a controversial measure rail operators are not allowed to use.
Last year a 22-year-old faced a criminal record after accidentally buying the wrong type of ticket with his railcard, saving him a whopping £1.85. A student who saved £1.90 was also at risk of prosecution, but operator Northern backed down on his and other cases where ‘the ticketing is very complex and complicated for customers’. And another student was fined £129.50 after sitting in the ‘wrong’ first class carriage – as while the rear first class carriage had been declassified, the front had not been.
A rail watchdog has now suggested passengers caught without a ticket should be let off with a ‘yellow card’ for a first offence. Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at webnews@metro.co.uk. For more stories like this, check our news page. Arrow MORE: MPs’ pay could be boosted by more than £2,500 to almost £94,000. Arrow MORE: Love Island winner Jack Fincham can’t pay fine after spending ‘£1,000,000 on gambling’.
