£616 shock for father who failed to buy a train ticket

A FATHER was billed more than £600 after he was stopped for not having a £2.30 train ticket.

Mat Wheeler, 30, caught a train from Taffs Well, where he works, to go home to Fairwater, Cardiff, in August last year.

Husband to wife Nicola and dad to one-year-old Erin, Mat said he boarded a train headed to Radyr, where he could change services and head home. But the routine journey left him with a bill of more than £600 after he said he was unable to buy a £2.30 ticket at the station.

Mat said: “I finished work early and caught the train. I only had cash on me and the machine at Taffs Well station only took cards.”

Mat said he got on the train to Radyr and said nobody was on the train from whom he could buy a ticket, so he changed at Radyr to a service headed for Fairwater and said the same thing happened.

“There was no guard on the second train.

“I got off at Fairwater and as I went to walk home, a gentleman with a clipboard and a camera stopped me and said, ‘Have you got a ticket?’

“I said no. He started reading me my rights. I was completely shocked.

“I said, ‘I’ve got the money to pay – can I pay you now?’ He said it doesn’t work like that.”

Mat, who works at a builders’ merchants in Taff’s Well, was ordered to pay a total of £616.30 for travelling on a railway without paying a fare – a £440 fine, compensation of £2.30, a victim surcharge of £44 and costs of £130.

“If you don’t have a ticket it’s understandable but if you’ve got the money to pay, then they should be able to accept that.

“It’s still legal tender, if you want to pay cash you should be able to pay cash.

“I had to scrimp and save and borrow just to pay it off. It’s ridiculous.

“I used to get the train every day. Not everyone is going to use their bank cards to pay. I don’t think I’ll ever catch the train again – I think I’d rather walk or use the car.”

An Arriva Trains Wales spokesman said: “We would like to remind customers that it is their responsibility to buy a valid ticket for the date and time of their journey. If ticket buying facilities are available at the station they are travelling from, customers must buy their ticket before they board.

“These are National Rail requirements, set out in the National Conditions of Travel and Railway Byelaws 2005. For those caught travelling without a valid ticket or have failed to activate a mobile ticket, there are consequences. The fines, set by the courts, could in theory be anything up to £1000.

“We do have a fair system in place and if caught travelling without a valid ticket, each case is reviewed in line with our revenue enforcement policy which can be found on our website.

“We always take into account mitigating circumstances and encourage customers to respond at the earliest opportunity to any correspondence in order to ensure that their case is assessed as fairly as possible.

“If taken to court, the fine is decided by the judge based on the circumstances surrounding each individual case. Arriva Trains Wales only receives the ticket cost of the journey and administrative costs.”