A ₤43,000 Fine For Fare Evasion - It's How He Was Caught That Should Worry You

I’m writing about what appears at first reading to be, in the grand scheme of things, a trivial matter, in part because I’m interested in the psychology of the offender, but primarily because of what it reveals as to what can be deduced about our behaviour from the data collected on us by governments and corporations.

A highly paid executive in a City of London fund manager has repaid ₤43,000 in assessed fares he is alleged to have evaded over a five year period. That’s $AUS 77,000.

Apparently, his modus operandi was to board the train at his no barrier, country home station of Stonegate in East Sussex, then tap off with his Oyster Card when he reached London, where he was charged the maximum city fare of ₤7.20. By some means, he then avoided tapping his card through the entry barrier in Cannon St, London for the return journey each evening, knowing there would be no problem at Stonegate.

I take this to be the allegation, because the one way fare from Stonegate to London is quoted in the article as ₤21.50. Twice that, minus the ₤7.20 he paid each morning gives an amount of ₤35.80, which he allegedly evaded each day. If you divide 43,000 by 35.80, you get 1,200 ie. 5 x 240 days = 5 x 48 working weeks over 5 years. The ₤43,000 is actually ₤42,550 in fares, plus ₤450 in legal costs.

After reading the above linked article, you might have thought (as I initially did): “The bloke must be mad. Why admit to something like this?”

But an article in his local paper explains the circumstances more clearly. Coming through the barrier in London, a ticket inspector noticed his fare flash up as ₤7.20, indicating he hadn’t tapped on at the commencement of his journey.

He was then identified by some means (we’re not told how, or indeed, why he allowed himself to be). Presumably, inspection of his Oyster Card account revealed the same maximum, default fare of ₤7.20 being paid every day, with nothing on the way home. It was subsequently found that the last record of his purchase of a season ticket from Stonegate (prior to being questioned) was November 2008. He then purchased another season ticket in November 2013, a few days after being questioned at Cannon St.

A Southeastern Trains spokesman told The Guardian that it was the recent purchase of another season ticket which aroused their suspicion. Hence the allegation of five years of fare evasion.

Southeastern then calculated the amount of ₤43,000 based on five years of ₤21.50 single fare journeys, twice a day.

Despite at no stage formally admitting the allegations and despite the actual amount being about half this had he been buying season tickets, the man eventually reached an out of court settlement in which he paid the full amount of the claim, thus effectively admitting the allegations. The fact that not only was the matter settled out of court, but was done so with a confidentiality agreement, implies the man was represented by an experienced (and presumably well paid) solicitor, as would only be sensible in such circumstances.

What should concern people most about this matter is not the fare evasion (which I actually find amusing), but rather how he was discovered. The ability of people, or more likely, automated algorithms to interrogate large amounts of behavioural data and draw conclusions which can result in accusations of wrongdoing is something we need to actively guard against.

That the conclusions were almost certainly correct in this case is not the point. If you allow your behavioural data to be collected, how can you control, or even know who (or what) has access to it and how it will be selectively analysed and interpreted? If you care about your liberty, either keep collection of your behavioural data toa minimum, or carefully manage which aspects of it are collected.

By this last phrase, I mean allow the information to be collected which tells the story you want people to read. Being totally “off the grid” requires a lot of unnecessary commitment and is suspicious in itself.

Many government departments and corporations eg. banks and utility companies know where you live. The tax department knows where you work as well. If you’re travelling to and from work, what’s the harm in using a card which tracks payments and journeys? If you use Paypass on your credit card to buy your lunch in the food court next to your office, so what? It’s not providing details about your behaviour which cannot be deduced from other information. In fact, it’s better to do it and look like a normal citizen.

Now, suppose you want to go somewhere and keep it private. Buy a paper ticket. Pay with cash. It’s pretty simple.

The man in this case was caught because he was foolish. He was prepared to do something wrong, but didn’t make the effort to inform himself as to how he could be discovered.

The default fare of ₤7.20 is clearly unique and thus a device to allow inspectors to spot people who haven’t tapped on. The person who thought it up is not dumb. That tells you that having a lot of ₤7.20s on your Oyster Card account is evidence you don’t tap on regularly. If you live outside London, the most reasonable conclusion is that you’re not buying a ticket at your home station. So, if you’re going to do this, use an unregistered card!

His registered card allowed the rail corporation to flag him in a database, possibly linked by his address. Then he probably used a credit card to buy a season ticket from Stonegate after a five year hiatus. An algorithm detected “abnormal activity” and sent a report to some cunt with nothing better to do. Next thing, he gets a demand for the contrived amount of ₤43,000: “Pay us double or go to court.”

It’s reasonable to infer that he gave in and settled Southeastern Trains’ claim in full due to being threatened with prosecution and / or a civil claim and the attendant public exposure.

Manuel Cortes, leader of the TSSA complained that:

"There seems to be one law for the rich and one law for the poor when it comes to criminal prosecution. The rich seem to be able to walk away and claim secrecy while the poor get hauled up in front of the local magistrates court and publicly ridiculed. This guy can buy silence, but that isn't offered to most people who are caught fare dodging."

Yes, he bought silence and avoided prosecution, at a heavy price. In fact, public transport companies seem to have turned this into a nice little earner, blackmailing all manner of people with inflated fines to avoid court, although the “middle class youth worker” in this linked article should also have been fined ₤43,000 just for being a complete prat.

So what are you saying, Manuel? That taxpayers’ money should be wasted prosecuting everyone caught, even though most will end up paying less than the offered “settlement”? Where will the money to pay your wage claims come from then?

The Stonegate man paid an amount which could never have been recovered in a civil claim, had it proceeded to court. There is simply nothing other than circumstantial evidence suggesting wrongdoing. A criminal prosecution could not have succeeded. There is no evidence of fare evasion on the London network, as he pays the maximum fare. It is impossible to prove that the man even travelled on a train outside of London on all those days during the period in question. In a criminal matter, with the burden of proof on the prosecution, he would not have even needed to make a statement.

However, this apparent practice of the public transport companies blackmailing offenders into paying exorbitant fines under the guise of “legal costs” to avoid prosecution needs to be stopped. It is genuinely mediaeval. Just issue a fine, record the offender’s details and be done with it. That would stop the blackmail. Serial offenders could be prosecuted.

Finally, two questions I asked myself about the psychology of the Stonegate fare evader:

Firstly, why did he allow himself to be identified in the first place? He’s in a high paying position at a fund manager, where a criminal prosecution could not just damage his reputation, but get him fired. But he decides to evade train fares, using an Oyster Card registered to his name and address as part of his scheme. Then, when eventually challenged, he had no plausible defence.

“Are you making an accusation? There has been no fare evasion. You just saw me pay. I don’t know what happened. The gate at the other end was open. I tapped my card. I didn’t notice it hadn’t registered. I was in a hurry.”

A little prior research on London stations with no barriers would have made his story plausible. An unregistered Oyster Card would have given the ticket inspector no chance to dispute the story.

Secondly, since he’d already shelled out for a lawyer, why pay the ₤43,000? Even had he been sufficiently fearful of a civil claim, why not have his solicitor earn his fee by at least trying to talk the amount down?

The civil claim is actually the dangerous one, since the burden of proof on Southeastern Trains is not as onerous. His Oyster Card account history is pretty damning if combined with any CCTV at Stonegate, or local residents embarrassingly called as witnesses to prove he lives there. Probably better to settle the matter quietly, given he’d already been foolish enough to provide his accusers with a trail of evidence.

Any halfway decent solicitor should have been able to prevent a criminal prosecution. Apart from the possibility of CCTV at Stonegate, there is no evidence he even caught a train from there. Even had he been on CCTV on previous occasions, where is the evidence he did not buy a ticket, or have a seasonal ticket, now expired and discarded? He does not need to prove he did: the prosecution must prove beyond reasonable doubt he did not.

Bizarre behaviour all round. Definitely one for the Idiots section of RTBB. He repeatedly took a low probability risk many times, making no effort to hedge the severity of the consequences of being caught, despite the possible damage. And this bloke is managing large amounts of other people’s money. Need you ask where the GFC came from?