Up to 75,000 convictions for rail fare evasion will now be quashed, a top judge has ruled, in a victory for the Standard’s investigation into the misuse of a secretive fast-track courts system.
Seven train firms including Northern Rail and Greater Anglia have spent years unlawfully using the Single Justice Procedure to go after passengers accused of not paying for a ticket.
The system – which operates behind closed doors – involved fast-track justice, with a lone magistrate dealing with cases based on written evidence alone.
However only certain criminal offences spelled out by Parliament can be pursued by train companies in the SJP courts.
Earlier this year, the Standard revealed mass misuse of the system, with suspected fare evasion cases being unlawfully brought under the Regulation of Railways Act 1889.
At Westminster magistrates court on Thursday, Chief Magistrate Paul Goldspring delivered a ruling that all charges brought in this way were a “nullity”, meaning convictions should be overturned.
The judge said more than 74,000 criminal prosecutions dating back to 2017 are believed to be involved, making it – in numbers terms – one of the biggest miscarriages of justice in British legal history.
Fines and court costs paid by convicted defendants, which could run into millions of pounds, are now set to be repaid.
On Thursday afternoon, the Department for Transport confirmed for the first time that seven companies are embroiled in the scandal, naming them as: Northern, TransPennine, Avanti West Coast, Greater Anglia, Great Western Railway, Arriva Rail North, and Merseyrail.
Court officials are now trying to trace all affected defendants, in a process which could take several months.
The ruling heaps fresh scrutiny on to the beleaguered SJP system, which magistrates themselves have said is broken and in need of major reform.
“Parliament didn’t envisage these offences being prosecuted through the Single Justice Procedure”, said the judge, handing down a ruling that convictions in six test cases should be quashed.
“They should never have been bought through that process in the first place.”
Last month, Northern and Greater Anglia – the firms involved in the test cases - admitted they had “got it wrong” and agreed the judge should overturn more than 35,000 cases they were involved in.
The court heard the Department for Transport initially told the Ministry of Justice that four trains firms were involved.
Northern and Greater Anglia have also conceded during the legal proceedings that they have wrongly brought criminal prosecutions, in SJP and in normal open court, against people who had a “full defence” to a fare evasion allegation, when their legal rights were overlooked.
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.
He called the train firm’s acceptance of their mistakes a “vindication of what we have been saying from the start”.
Calling for greater oversight of train companies acting as private prosecutors in the courts, he said that he had given his name and address to the ticket inspector when first challenged, but still found himself being threatened with prosecution.
At the last hearing, Brian O’Neill KC, representing Northern Rail, said the company “wishes to apologise to the court and all interested parties for having fallen into error in the exercise of its prosecutorial powers.”
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.
The firms’ barrister Alistair Richardson told the court: “Greater Anglia recognises 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.”
After the court hearing, a spokesperson for Northern said: “We welcome the judgment of the Chief Magistrate in court today. We would like to apologise again for the errors that have occurred.
“We will now work with the court to implement today’s findings. We are unable to respond to individual enquiries in the meantime.
“Northern remains committed to ensuring that all our customers are treated fairly, which means ensuring all passengers who board our trains.”
A government spokesperson said: “We acknowledge the Chief Magistrate’s judgment and welcome the apology from train operators. While fare evasion should be tackled, the right process should be followed at all times.
“The people affected will be directly contacted in due course to resolve the cases in accordance with the judgment."
The Department for Transport is urging people who believe they may be affected to wait until they are contacted, rather than getting in touch themselves.
Courts Minister Heidi Alexander told Parliament last month that the Single Justice Procedure is “under review”.
The Standard has spent the last year exposing deep flaws in the system, including unlawful prosecutions of children and parents, people with dementia being convicted over unpaid bills, and compelling mitigation from people dying from cancer and frail pensioners going unread by prosecutors.
Tom Franklin, Chief Executive of the Magistrates’ Association, said today’s ruling poses “serious questions” for prosecutors about “how this was allowed to happen”.
And he said the debacle supports the association’s call for Single Justice Procedure reform.
“For some time now, the Magistrates’ Association has been calling for it to be more open and transparent, consistent, and fairer particularly for more vulnerable defendants such as those who are elderly or infirm”, he said.
“While many aspects of the SJP work well, we would like to see measures put in place to protect the most vulnerable defendants.
“Our recommendations include making it a requirement that prosecutors see all pleas and mitigations from defendants before the cases are heard by the magistrate, and reviewing and improving the training that magistrates receive before they can sit on SJP cases.
“Boosting transparency is needed by publishing more data on the SJP, such as how many defendants plead guilty, how many make no pleas, and how many ask to come to court, nationally and broken down by region. The government should also make provision for SJP sittings to be observable by accredited journalists.”
