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London underground fines

A friend recently travelled on an underground ticket that was zone 2 and 3 only, she travelled from brent cross through to Oval on the northern line.

They just moved to the area so did not realise that you had to get a zone 123 if you are travelling through zone 1, we thought you only needed this if you got off the train at any station in zone 1.

Anyway she got stopped at the station at Oval and they took her details and gave her a degrading telling off in front of the other customers and were very rude in dealing with her, which is now what I have come to expect of LU staff.

They read her rights to her and we recived a letter in the post from LU saying that she has 10 days to write back and give her side of story, so they can prepare a case to take to court. This seems a little bit harsh when the entire tube system is littered with warnings
a £10 fine for travelling without a ticket and here she is travelling with a ticket but not realise that she needed a different ticket.

She is now worried that she will go to court get a fine and a criminal record.

Has anybody else come across and delt with this??? and have any advice on what we should do or what could happen? do they treat LU fines like a car fine or do you get a criminal record which seems a little over
the top???

Leonardo5656 Mon 22/11/04 21:34

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Pinotage
Sat 27/11/04
15:46

All I can suggest is to write a very apologetic letter along the lines of what you've written above.

You may check out the station where she bought the ticket to see if there are any posters that explain how the zones work, because I cannot see an explanation on the LUL website at www.thetube.com . It could be used in mitigation that there's no explanation of the zone system and that as a newcomer whe wasn't aware, had no intention of defrauding, had a ticket which she willingly surrendered to the inspectors at her destination station.

ianess
Sat 27/11/04
22:36

Ignorance of the law is never acceptable as an excuse. She`s a criminal so why should she expect any courtesy. In any other country she`d be stood against a wall and shot. At the very least transport her to the penal colony of Australia. That might stop others from trying to defraud LU and may prevent future fare increases. This damn nanny state really p***es me off bigstyle.

SGKelloe32
Tue 30/11/04
14:01

How could she be ignorant of the law whenshe didn't know the rules reguarding the zones?I'm sure it will be sorted out, ignore comments like the persons above.

ianess
Tue 30/11/04
18:42

Definition of Ignorance ... A willful neglect or refusal to acquire knowledge which one may acquire and it is his duty to have .

OK.....my original answer was meant to be a bit tongue-in-cheek BUT if SGKelloe knew that the English language developed from Latin [amongst others] he would be aware that he was repeating himself.

London Transport/ Underground ticket inspectors have heard every excuse under the Sun, but the fact remains that not knowing of the existance of a law will rarely be accepted as an excuse.

How come I haven`t upset any Australians?

I also reiterate my comments about the nanny state we live in.........have a nice day.

SGKelloe32
Wed 01/12/04
12:05

Im not a he - maybe you should use your term of ignorance and realise that not all people wwith an opinion are male!

ianess
Wed 01/12/04
18:40

Point well made and fairly taken. Sorry for being sexist on top of everything else.

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