Mother faces court over £5.40 return train ticket

A SINGLE mother is to be prosecuted for refusing to pay an £85 fine for an incorrect train ticket, despite buying a fare to the stop before hers which cost exactly the same.

Claire Long, 40, claims she was issued a fine after travelling into Manchester from her home in Orrell, Lancs, where she was unable to buy a ticket because there were no facilities.

On arriving at Manchester Victoria she bought a return ticket to Wigan

‘One of my friends got a formal warning, but I got a fixed penalty notice of £85’

Wallgate for £5.40, as she knew that there would be no trains back to Orrell when she was due to return later that evening.

However, as Miss Long and her friends were going through the barriers at Victoria, they were stopped by an inspector who questioned their tickets.

Despite the price of a ticket to Orrell costing the same amount, she and three other members of her group had their details taken and were later served fines. On failing to pay, she was issued a court summons last week.

Commenting on the dispute, Miss Long said: “I have travelled that route so many times and I’ve never had this problem. It’s ridiculous, it’s pathetic. I’m a single mum and this is just too costly.

“If I wanted to avoid a fare, I would have asked for a ticket from somewhere much closer and saved myself a lot of money.

“I explained everything to her [the ticket inspector] but she said we were trying to defraud the train company. One of my friends got a formal warning, but I got a fixed penalty notice of £85, which I disputed because I had a valid ticket, as far as I’m concerned.”

On its website, National Rail states: “Northern Rail does not issue any fines instantaneously. Typically an ‘unpaid fares notice’ or a ‘fail to purchase notice’ will be issued granting the customer 21 days to remedy the payment of the fare only.

“In some instances an incident report will be created and further information will be requested before a final decision is made as to the outcome.”