Rail companies have admitted unlawfully misusing a controversial fast-track court process to prosecute passengers for fare evasion, paving the way for up to 75,000 criminal cases to be quashed.
Northern Rail and Greater Anglia admitted they “got it wrong” when using the Single Justice Procedure (SJP) to bring criminal prosecutions over alleged fare dodging.
SJP is a fast-track justice system where magistrates sit behind-closed-doors instead of open court and decide whether to convict a defendant based on written evidence alone.
Rail firms can legally use SJP to prosecute fare evasion under railway byelaws, but are not allowed to use the process for cases brought under the Regulation of Railways Act 1889.
However campaigners and the Evening Standard have exposed how several firms have been using the Regulation of Railways Act in unlawful SJP prosecutions for years.
The companies have now accepted that all those convictions should now be overturned, and any remaining live prosecutions brought to an end.
Brian O’Neill KC, representing government-owned Northern Rail, told Westminster magistrates court on Friday the company “wishes to apologise to the court and all interested parties for having fallen into error in the exercise of its prosecutorial powers.”
He said: “We are all in agreement that the proceedings were a nullity.”
Chief Magistrates Paul Goldspring said “as many as 75,000” cases could be affected, and he is set to rule on the legal process to be used for overturning the convictions on August 15.
It will likely lead to millions of pounds in court-ordered fines and costs being repaid to passengers who were unlawfully prosecuted.
Northern Rail, which became government-owned after the failure of Arriva Rail North in 2020, said it has so far identified 29,180 prosecutions as being brought wrongly.
Greater Anglia said it has found 5,936 affected prosecutions dating back to 2017, and its barrister Alistair Richardson told the court: “Greater Angliarecognises that a series of significant errors have occurred.
“It wishes to apologise unreservedly to the court and the individuals involved. It takes the position extremely seriously.”
Other rail companies are understood to be involved in the scandal, and Judge Goldspring said his ruling will apply to all affected prosecutions.
Outside court, rail campaigners called for widespread reform of the system for tackling fare evasion, better regulation of rail companies, and even an end to private prosecutions themselves.
Christian Waters, 46, from Leeds, has spent years challenging Northern Rail after he was threatened with prosecution for being on a train when the ticket machine was broken as he boarded, and he was instrumental in bringing to light the misuse of the SJP courts.
“This is vindication of what we have been saying from the start,” he said. “They should have acknowledged this problem when we started.
He added: “I think there needs to be oversight of private prosecutions.
“The CPS has strict oversight of their prosecutions, but there is no equivalent for private prosecutors, and they don’t even have to be legally trained.”
The two rail companies who appeared in court have also admitted wrongly prosecuting hundreds of people who offered to pay for a fare or gave their names and addresses when they were stopped without a ticket.
The firms admitted this is “complete defence” to a criminal charge and had not been recognised in the past.
They also conceded that criminal cases should not have been brought in circumstances when a passenger appealed against a penalty charge notice for not having a ticket, and the penalty fare was cancelled before the end of the civil appeals process.
Judge Goldspring indicated at Friday’s hearing that he may not rule on the legality of those cases, and it could be a matter to be dealt with in the High Court instead.
At an earlier hearing, Judge Goldspring indicated that use of the SJP courts was a technical breach, and many of those whose convictions are set to be quashed would have been properly convicted in open court.
But he added: “Innocent until proven guilty is only really as good as the process, and you can’t have undue process to get there.”
The role of private prosecutors like rail firms is under the spotlight in the wake of the Post Office scandal, where hundreds of subpostmasters were taken to court by the organisation over faulty accusations of theft and fraud.
The explosion of publicity of that scandal, including ITV’s Mr Bates versus the Post Office TV drama, is understood to have triggered an internal review among train operators of the use of the SJP process.
Mr O’Neill said in written submissions that Northern Rail, as a wholly owned subsidiary of the Department for Transport OLR Holdings Ltd [DOHL] “exercises its prosecutorial powers as a public prosecutor and owes a high duty of candour to the courts and those whom it prosecutes”.
“Whilst it is not suggested that a private prosecutor does not have similar responsibilities, there is undoubtedly a greater level of expectation and scrutiny when it comes to public prosecutors and rightly so.
“Plainly, therefore, there is a duty on (Northern) to draw to the attention of the courts and defendants any and all cases where it has brought a prosecution in a way which was or may have been procedurally incorrect, or, prosecuted someone who had or may have had a complete defence to the charge.”
The fast-track SJP courts have also been under-fire for the last year thanks to a Standard investigation exposing how vulnerable, elderly, and sick people are harshly treated in hearings that take place behind closed doors.
The Labour Party signalled before the General Election that it would be willing to look at SJP reform, but it was not included in this week’s King’s Speech.
